


Like One of Her Crime Novels

by niichts



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Backstory, Detectives, F/M, Gen, Héctor Rivera Needs a Hug, Pre-Canon, Some Humor, Victoría Is Just Tired
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:48:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24353140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niichts/pseuds/niichts
Summary: "If this scenario had appeared in any of Victoria’s novels, it would have no doubt been described as “starting as a day like any other”. The corny opening sentence to any cheap paperback adventure book that she’d buy simply more out of boredom than anything else"Victoría is perfectly content with her existence in the afterlife, helping in the Rivera zapatería and counting the days until the approaching Día de los Muertos next week. It's just a shame that all gets derailed when she happens to meet a customer named Anton Doucet, self-proclaimed Private Detective and all-around one of the weirdest people she's ever met. It looks like Victoría's going to end up getting more than she expected, becoming roped into his current case and discovering more about her family's past along the way.(In essence, an AU where Miguel still gets cursed, and the events involving Victoría and her OC acquaintance tie into the main plot)
Relationships: Ceci/Tía Victoria (Coco 2017), Héctor Rivera/Imelda Rivera, Tía Victoria (Coco 2017)/Original Character(s)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 65





	1. Exposition

**Author's Note:**

> I only recently saw Coco for the first time and was naturally so enthralled with it that I started browsing the fandom immediately. Of course it was the one character that has all of maybe five lines in the whole film that interested me the most and I thought, "Hey, you know what? What that character needs is an adventure of her own that absolutely nobody asked for!"

If this scenario had appeared in any of Victoria’s novels, it would have no doubt been described as _“starting as a day like any other”._ The corny opening sentence to any cheap paperback adventure book that she’d buy simply more out of boredom than anything else. Besides, it wasn’t like there were many other pursuits she could follow that were both edifying and creative when… _it_ wasn’t allowed within the Rivera house.

Victoria straightened the account books underneath the counter. She was responsible for managing the front of the shop for today; she was the only one Mama Imelda ever seemed to trust enough to do it. Julio would always clam up whenever the conversation deviated from a strict, business-like path and Rosita, ever her brother’s polar opposite, would gossip on with the customers for ages and take at least half an hour to get so much as an order off them.

Patience and a no-nonsense attitude were the two traits Victoria prided herself most on. They made her incredibly effective at her current job, even if working on huaraches was something she considered to be much more worth her time.

She pushed the box of needles to the side, picking up loose scraps of leather from the bottom of the shelf and tossing them into the small waste basket behind her. Would it kill Oscar and Felipe a second time if they picked up after themselves or something? True, they’d had to start hiding their newest inventions away from Imelda after a recent incident involving seven oranges, a chimpanzee alebrije and Rosita’s pressure cooker. But if they moved the invention (or to be more precise, the remains of the invention) elsewhere, it wouldn’t hurt for them to tidy up a bit afterwards.

The ringing of the bell on the door told her a customer had entered. Silence followed, which was in and of itself rather unusual. Typically, there’d be the sound of footsteps as the person approached the counter, or some form of shuffling. A cough or sneeze, even. But…nothing. Complete silence. 

She fixed her dress as she made to straighten up, realising only then that the only thing she could properly hear other than the usual noise of the workshop was a faint humming, similar to radio static.

_What a ridiculous thought._

Mama Imelda would soon butcher Pepita for meat than buy a radio. Anything even remotely _related_ to music was purged from the family vocabulary. When she was still alive, Victoria had once snook out to the mariachi square, her insatiable urge to understand the forbidden fruit spurting her on. Her sister Elena had always been the least rebellious of them, desperate to uphold the family matriarch’s rules and naturally telling the woman exactly where she’d gone.

It was the angriest she’d ever seen her grandmother and she never went back again.

Tossing the last remnants of leather scraps into the basket, she turned around to see what the deal was with the new customer. It as a good job she’d already died, otherwise she may have just suffered a heart attack.

It was a man, stood stock-straight and leaning so far across the counter he was practically kissing her. He was tall and gaunt, clad in a blood-red suit that had suffered the grime and dirt of the ages. A jacket, waistcoat and a black dress shirt and bow tie were the most eye catching of his attire, accompanied by a rusted gold watch chain sticking out of his right-hand pocket. The tails of the coat reached the back of his knees (one of the trouser legs were badly patched over, its plain design highlighted by the suit’s original pinstripe tones), accentuating a dirty pair of spats on his feet that were slowly coming apart around the toes. 

She studied his face closely, especially the eyes – or lack thereof, to be more precise. Rather than eyeballs, the sockets opened up to gaping blackness with single white pricks inside at an indescribable distance. They were most almost inhuman in nature, never blinking or wavering from her. They were unnatural, unnerving. It was like staring directly into the abyss.

What few distinguishable facial markings he had consisted of two black swirls on his cheekbones and a single, ornate “x” right in the middle of his forehead, very algebraic in appearance and looking a lot like a target. The shape of his mouth seemed normal enough, but his smile was just… _off_. The teeth seemed almost comically elongated and the lips stretched to the tops of the teeth, allowing her to see the inky black spaces that would have once been his gums. And just like his gaze, it never wavered. Despite only knowing him for a couple of seconds, she was confident in putting money on the fact that he couldn’t stop grinning even if he wanted to.

If she looked shocked at his bizarre appearance, his face gave no indication of it. Chances were he was used to such a reception.

“Welcome to _la zapateria Rivera_ ” she spoke up, forcing herself to re-adopt her cordial tone. “How may I help you today?”

The man spoke with an exaggeratedly happy voice, so much so that Victoria temporarily wondered whether he was having a joke at her expense.

“Yes, I was wondering if I could possibly have these shoes of mine repaired, my dear.”  
  


Pausing only to bristle at the pet name, she leaned across the counter and studied them. They were falling apart, yes, but they looked quite cheap anyway. Dress shoes, built for style rather than practicality. Nothing a little glue and some nails couldn’t handle, though she had to give them credit for seemingly lasting so long.

“I think it should be a fairly easy job” she surmised, opening up the account book to the next available slot. “That’ll be fifty pesos, mister…?”

A gloved hand was run through his hair before he answered. It was in no way fixed; black strands remained sticking out at random angles as if it couldn’t decide which way it wanted to grow.

“Doucet. Anton Doucet.”

Victoria mulled the name over in her head as she wrote it down. Definitely not Spanish in origin. French, most likely. Either a French family or a Frenchman who had lived in Spain for most of his life. He had to have been, to have died and ended up down here.

“Interesting shop you have here.”

Victoria raised an eyebrow, but decided she had the time to engage in some light conversation for civility’s sake.

“It’s been part of the family for decades” she said, feeling a rare sense of familial pride build in her chest. “As we’ve always said, _a Rivera is a shoemaker through and thr_ \- “

“Oh no, I gathered that it was a family business just by looking at the name. I was referring to your rather bizarre work regulations.”

He pointed to the wooden sign on the wall, labelled _“NO MÚSICA”_ in bold letters painted red.

Victoria resisted the urge to sigh exasperatedly. Not a week went by without someone asking about it. Some saw it as a joke, returning on their second visit and bursting into chorus. A quick encounter with Mama Imelda’s boot quickly put a stop to that.

“It’s our manager’s rule” she explained briefly, no longer feeling the need to be civil. The sooner this person placed his order and left, the sooner she could get back to doing what made her happy – even if it was just sorting out the supplies.

“I see. Did a bloodthirsty clarinet happen to murder you all in your sleep one night?”

“…no.”

“Then I’m afraid I don’t understand the reasoning behind such a rule.”

Neither did Victoria, not really. All that she’d ever learned from her mother, Coco (who was still in the living world and approaching the ripe old age of a hundred) was that Mama Imelda believed her old husband was a good-for-nothing _músico_ that abandoned the two of them years before she was even born.

“You’ll have to take it up with her.” Victoria decided to say, giving it a deliberate air of finality. The topic was finished with; the man would have to know that.

His response was little more than an amused hum, his lips not even moving as he did so. His silky voice was slightly distorted, as if it were coming through a filter.

Victoria looked back down at the account book, deciding she’d have to be the one to break their impromptu staring contest.

“Your shoes should be repaired by tomorrow, senor Doucet. Will you able to collect them around, shall we say, eleven?”

The man’s grin remained ever-fixed as he bent down and untied his shoes.

“Yes, of course.”

Even the simple affirmation sounded like she’d promised him every Christmas at once.

“May I ask you your name, dear?”

Victoria immediately tensed. Her aim was nowhere as perfect as her grandmother’s, but this man would leave the shop with his tail between his legs one way or another if he even _dared_ attempt to flirt with her.

“Victoria” she replied simply, the word sounding as if it caused her physical pain.

“Good to meet you, Victoria! Now then“ he slammed his shoes down on the counter with an unnecessary amount of force. “Will that be all?”

Victoria adjusted her glasses, feeling a familiar sense of irritation rise in her, though on this occasion she couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. This wasn’t one of those snobbish customers who believed they were entitled to everything they lay eyes on, nor the loudmouths who complained about their shoes being the wrong size despite never even trying them. This Doucet man seemed charming enough, but exaggeratedly so. Every word sounded measured and precise to an unnatural extent, giving the impression that each sentence that left his mouth had been thoroughly planned beforehand. Like an extraterrestrial trying to pass as a human.

She mentally slapped herself and made the promise to lay off some of her sci-fi novels. Her imagination was running away with her to some place she didn’t need to be right now.

She forced her gaze upwards, staring right into his hollow excuses for eyes. On second examination, he looked quite young. There were no grey hairs, and his voice, whilst odd, sounded nowhere near tired from use. Maybe he’d been around twenty-four or twenty-five upon death, if she had to hazard a guess, though she had very little to go on.

“Yes, senor Doucet, that will be all. I’ll see you soon.”

“Likewise” he said pleasantly. Spinning on his heel, he strolled from the shop, whistling some tune and completely ignoring the sign he’d just pointed out. Victoria was tempted to stop him, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. The tuneless noise continued for a few seconds longer, before it was muffled by the bell dinging once again and the door shutting behind him.

*

“Victoria, mija, are you alright?”

Victoria turned as she entered the workshop, noticing Mama Imelda giving a slightly concerned stare. “Yes, of course. I’m fine. Why?”

“You look rather bothered about something. Was it a customer?” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Were they a _músico?”_

“No, they weren’t a músico. Just a rather strange gentleman, is all.” Victoria handed the pair of shoes over to her. “He’s looking to have these repaired.”

Imelda studied them, tutting to herself.

“Filthy things. What’s he been doing with them? Rounding up pigs?”

She peeled back the loose sole and took a closer look at the damage. The family always found it best to let her do her own thing when it came to moments like these. Even the sheer mention of music seemed to make her need to rant about something.

“They look rather shoddily-made to begin with, if I’m being honest. If I were him, I would have just thrown them out and gotten a new pair.”

If Imelda Rivera herself said that, then _they_ must have been ragged.

“Is he wanting them polished?” piped up Oscar from the other end of the room, hammering some fabric.

“After all, you can barely even see the white parts” added Felipe, who, of course, was standing right next to him.

“It’s more of a grey now than anything.”

“Grey? Really? That’s a bit generous. It’s more of a mix of charcoal black and grey, with the odd spot of white for good measure.”

“Perhaps it’s a new trend. Speaking of which, did you get the extra plastic for a our light-up –“

He cut off when he noticed Imelda glaring at them.

“…our light-up _not-an-invention_.”

Victoria figured their secret code could use some work. Oscar’s eyes spun in different directions, obviously trying to find a way out of the hole they’d just dug themselves.

In the brighter light of the workshop, Victoria noticed something else about the shoes. There was something reflective along the top of the left one, looking a lot like-

“There’s tape on that one” she pointed out. Imelda looked back down at them, scoffing as she slowly peeled it off.

“Obviously tried to fix them himself, the idiot.” She prodded what it was covering. A sharp cut of some sort. Imelda stuck her finger through it, and it went through the shoe and came out in the inside. “I can see what you meant by him being rather strange. Has he been stabbing them?”

“Maybe one of his pigs did it” chuckled Felipe and immediately shut up the minute Imelda turned to look at the two of them again.

“When did you say he could collect them by?”

“Tomorrow at eleven o’clock” Victoria replied simply. Imelda never showed any outward worry when it came to a large number of demands, instead settling for subtler cues. On this occasion, she sucked the air noisily through her teeth.

“We’ve still got to finish off the order from the children’s home. We’ve finished twenty-six, there’s just twelve more need doing…” she peered at the clock. “We’ve got five minutes before we close. Victoria, mija, I hate to do this to you, but could you fix this pair for me? We’re just too swamped at the moment.”

“That’s fine, abuelita.”

She wasn’t lying. Victoria saw no problem in a little extra work when the orders became a bit too much. Her relatives would often tease her for never taking any time off, but from her perspective, the extra toiling just made her eventual relaxation all the more enjoyable, anyway. She took the ragged things back from her grandmother and headed back towards the front of house, locking the door and flipping the “open” sign to “closed”.

“Come on then,” she sighed to the shoes, “let’s get you fixed.”

*

She couldn’t get them fixed.

Every time she’d solve one issue, another would pop up. The knife slash gave way to peeling leather, gluing one end would open up the other – it was by that point midnight, and Victoria was starting to seriously lose her temper.

How was this so hard? She was a Rivera, dammit! To be beaten by such a cheap and filthy excuse for footwear was downright embarrassing.

The workshop door creaked open behind her and she spun around on her stool to see Julio standing there, hat in his hands. The others had finished ages ago and gone to bed, assuming she wouldn’t be too long following them. Which just rubbed salt into the wounds, really.

“Uh, mija…” he began, “…do you maybe want to leave the shoes and come up to bed?”

There was the urge to snap back, but she instantly recognised it as a sign of tiredness. She could argue with her father, but she couldn’t argue with logic.

“…yes. Yes, I’ll be upstairs in a moment.”

Julio nodded solemnly, no doubt thinking the same thing she was: tomorrow would involve the ever-rare occurrence of a disappointed customer. Still, whilst she was dedicated to the business, that didn’t mean she was going to drop dead over it. At least not a second time, anyway.

_No, those are **not** thoughts you want right now. _

Flicking the lights off behind her, she carried the shoes (now in a spare cardboard box) up the stairs and into her room. It was simply designed; her walls a plain teal colour and every available surface crammed full of books. Her dresser, her windowsill, even her wardrobe had some form of literature in it.

Loosening her hair and slipping on a light blue nightgown, she began to feel sleep taking her. She dropped the shoes at the foot of her bed. The once-fixed toe sprung back apart again.

If she’d been any more awake, chances are she would have thrown them off her wall.

Now, however, unable to do anything other than feel a pang of resigned annoyance, she lay back and closed her eyes.

*

Half a second later, or so it felt to her, Victoria was sat in the back garden. A small patio with a well-kept lawn and a row of blossoming flowers of all different sizes and colour thanks to Rosita’s careful nurturing. But Victoria couldn’t pay attention to any of that, because she was too busy chasing the damaged pair of spats, which jogged around the lawn despite nobody wearing them.

She dived at them, but they leapt aside just in time, giggling in a high-pitched voice.

“Get back here!” she snarled at them. The broken toe split further and a tongue poked out, blowing a raspberry. She made to give chase, only to lurch forward and realise one of her feet had become stuck in the grass. No matter how hard she pulled, it wouldn’t budge.

Noticing her uncles by the back door, she called for their help. But they ignored her, instead focusing on a giant fruit they held in their hands; Felipe with a giant bunch of grapes, and Oscar, a massive strawberry. They didn’t even look as something erupted from the ground beside her foot and grabbed her ankle, starting to drag her under. Her calling escalated to screaming as she felt her body being consumed by the ground, only for her to sit up in bed panting as her head was about to go under.

It took a few moments for her to regain mental control, reeling in her breathing. There was no need for panic, she didn’t even a heart that could give out, let alone lungs to supply it with oxygen. And whilst her uncles had indeed had some bizarre ideas in the past, none of them had come remotely close to genetically mutated fruit.

She rubbed at her temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache as she checked her bedside alarm and saw the time. Two in the morning. It had been one of death’s major disappointments to discover one could still somehow catch the common cold or occasional migraine even after being put six feet under.

She’d go downstairs, get some water and try to catch some more sleep.

Wrapping her arms around herself to keep warm, she tiptoed across the landing and down the stairs. She could hear a deep rumble above her head, knowing full well that Pepita had obviously chosen the roof as a place to sleep for the night.

Ignoring the way her nightgown sifted further into her torso via the gaps in her ribs (knowing about it didn’t make it any less unsettling) she made her way into the kitchen, fetching a glass and turning the tap on as slowly as possible so the squeaking wouldn’t wake anyone else up.

Moonlight shone a thin sliver through the window; there was deathly silence beyond that. Imelda had deliberately chosen a home as isolated as possible, away from the city centre and, god forbid, the arts district. Once again, Victoria couldn’t have been happier with her grandmother’s decision. It meant more time to be alone with her thoughts and to block out any of the bad ones.

She peered out onto the flowerbed, which wasn’t the least bit different from her dream. Though she wasn’t wearing her spectacles at the moment, causing everything beyond eight feet away to appear a dull blur, the lack of light made their abundance of colour a bit easier on the eyes. If it were any brighter, she may have suffered a seizure.

Somewhere in the distance, an owl alebrije hooted. And at the bottom of the path, stood –

Victoria almost dropped the glass.

At the bottom of the path, stood the shadow of a man.

There was someone standing in their back garden. 


	2. The Protagonists

One side of Victoria’s brain screamed at her to duck, but the logical side refused to agree, telling her that there was not a chance in hell that this person hadn’t seen her gawking out of the window at them by now. The result was a state of mild paralysis, fingers gripping the glass so hard she momentarily feared it would shatter.

Wrestling herself out of her own mental half-nelson, she put the glass down slowly on the bench and weighed up her options.

The main plan was to either confront them, or wake up the rest of the family and confront them together. But by the time she roused everyone, the figure would most likely be long gone.

And it wasn’t like they could _kill_ her…

Incapacitate her, yes. Possibly very painfully…

_No, we’re going out._

She steeled her reserve and walked to the back door. She was a grown woman; she didn’t need to hide behind other people’s skirts. If Mama Imelda had a duty to protect the family, then so did she. True, she was more likely considering music when she said those words – a far cry from shadowy figures of potential doom – but Victoria convinced herself that the basic principle still applied.

The figure had its back to her as she approached, but she could make out a mariachi-like suit, all in black. Its legs were exaggeratedly long, from what she could make out, they made up the majority of his height. The jacket was rather small, giving a disproportionate look, but all thoughts of size left her mind when she noticed what seemed to be long tendrils of smoke emanating from its head and shoulders, curling as it rose into the night air.

Victoria cleared her throat when she decided she was close enough, making sure she was wearing her sternest glare.

The figure turned, but she was unable to see a face. A white starch collar covered the bottom half, whilst the top was obscured by a stitched hood, once again in black. This really was her day for meeting strange people.

_“Rivera?”_ came a voice. There was no mouth she could make out, but it sounded like both a man and a woman were speaking at once, overlapping at the exact same time.

Victoria flatly refused to let the surprise register on her face.

“Yes” she answered curtly.

The figure gave no sudden reply, nor did it make any violent moves. The way it spoke made it sound even vaguely bored with proceedings.

_“Where is he?”_

“And just who do you refer to by _he_?”

_“The musician.”_

_That_ threw Victoria for a loop. She’d assume this person had broken into the wrong property, but they knew her name somehow. This was bad, no matter which way she looked at it.

“You obviously don’t know this family very well” she said sternly. “And even if I knew who you were talking about, I daresay I wouldn’t exactly be inclined to help you.”

“ _I’m not here to have a chat about your pathetic family, woman. I’m here to know whether you’ve at all been in contact with him_.”

Victoria could only assume that he was talking about her mysterious grandfather. Once again, she was in two minds: either tell the man the truth and that no, she had not even set eyes on him let alone talked to him, or remain silent.

She remained silent, trying not let her surprise at the fact that this man was dead (not to mention supposedly residing in the same district as them) show on her face.

The figure just sighed in response.

_“He’s been seen near your house many times over the past month. And that’s something I’m afraid we cannot allow to happen.”_

A hand slipped behind its back and the shadow of a long, thin object slid into view. Victoria had opened up enough crates of leather imports to recognise a crowbar when she saw one.

_“If you’re telling the truth and you genuinely don’t know, then we still need a way to deter him from doing so again. I’m sure a broken bone and a threatening letter will do.”_

Victoria’s mouth was suddenly very dry. She wished that glass of water was somewhere close. Just why was this man, who the rest of her family seemed to absolutely and without reservation despise, such a big deal for them? What did they care whether he came near the house or not? Were they an overzealous police officer of some sort?

The figure advanced and the light finally caught the gap between his hood and collar. A rotting gas mask was strapped to his face, the musty lenses boring into her soul.

As quick as a flash, Victoria’s boot was in her hand and she swung, grateful she’d put them on when she got out of bed. The extra practice she’d had as a child in case of particularly grabby boys was something she definitely attributed her speed to.

All that speed was wasted, however, as the figure grabbed her swinging arm and slammed the end of the crowbar into her chest in a manner that looked almost effortless. She stumbled back a few paces, winded.

_“I only plan to break one bone”_ the figure added, a vague edge of annoyance to his voice. _“singular. However, if you continue to annoy me, I will easily settle for plural.”_

Victoria desperately turned and looked to the windows, which were still dark. Nobody else had heard the commotion. Nobody had switched on their light. And where on Earth was Pepita?

_“In short, do not attempt to hit me again.”_

“What about me? Can _I_ hit you?”

A muffled banging sound echoed from atop the garden fence. Another, much scrawnier figure lifted itself over in what Victoria believed to be possibly the least graceful way possible, before falling face-first into the flowerbed with a blunt “ouch”.

She squinted. She recognised that voice…

The figure picked itself up out of the dirt and sure enough, the face of Anton Doucet smiled right back at her.

“Oh, hello!” he smiled, his words somewhat slurred. Had he been drinking? “Fancy seeing you here.”

Victoria wanted to shout at him that this was not really the time for a conversation, but she then noticed the shadow creature looking at him as well, tilting its head as if unable to comprehend the ridiculousness of what it was seeing.

_“Who are you and what are you doing here?”_ it hissed.

“I was dumpster diving for tamales when I heard a commotion” he replied jovially, as if they were old friends catching up. “As any upstanding citizen would, I naturally decided to investigate.”

_“You are not wanted. Leave.”_

“But that would defeat the whole purpose of me coming here.”

A second enraged hiss.

_“Do you know who I am?”_

“Haven’t a clue.”

_“Then I suggest you go. The Rivera woman is important, but you are disposable. I will not hesitate to erase you.”_

“Them’s fighting words, your hideousness.”

The figure swung the crowbar, but Doucet was fast, faster than Victoria had ever expected a human to be, swerving out of its path and kicking the figure in the shin. They grunted in pain and went for a second attempt, but Doucet responded by grabbing the arm holding the weapon and twisting slightly. The crowbar dropped to the ground and Victoria kicked it away with her foot, deciding it unwise to get involved in a conflict that had escalated to hand-to-hand wrestling.

The figure punched Doucet where his gut would have once been. The fabric of his red suit sunk inwards from the impact – did the man even _sleep?_ – and he responded by sticking his leg out and tripping his opponent over onto the flowerbed.

They both went down, hitting and kicking, crushing all of the flowers Rosita had carefully pruned around them.

There was a sudden snapping noise and Doucet threw something else aside with a triumphant “ _a-ha!”,_ Victoria recognised it as the filter of the figure’s gas mask as it rolled over by her feet.

Something warm hit the back of her neck and she turned to see one of the house’s bedroom lights had been turned on. Finally, someone had been woken up by all the racket.

One of the two wrestling in the dirt cursed under their breath. A black-covered leg shot up from the ground and kicked Doucet directly in the jaw with enough force for it to come off; it went sailing a good few feet and landed in a bush by the pathway. As Doucet scrambled for his missing body part, the figure rose back to its feet and for one horrific moment, Victoria feared that he was going to go for her again. But the figure instead gave a scornful glare (even with the mask on, she could recognise the intensity of the gaze) and leaped over the fence with much more finesse than Doucet had managed without so much as a single word.

A click drew her attention; Doucet had managed to re-attach his jawbone, the smile back to its usual state.

“Well” he said airily, “that’s not something you see every day.”

Victoria was stuck dead in the middle of the path. She suddenly had no energy to move her arms or legs in any way.

_“What happened out here?”_

The back door had been flung open and Mama Imelda stood illuminated in its frame, every atom around her crackling with anger. Victoria couldn’t even begin to formulate an excuse and felt almost ready to burst into tears.

Then she noticed that her grandmothers’ anger was directed more towards the state of the garden. The look she gave her was more of pity and worry. And whilst Victoria often despised being on the receiving end of both those things, her family were the only exception.

“Burglars, mija?”

Victoria could only nod numbly. Any moment now, she’d notice Doucet and it would all be over.

“Actually” she said, her own voice sounding foreign to her. “I think it may have been a rogue alebrije, abuelita. It’s not like anyone actually got into the house.”

“ _Hmph_. Only because they encountered my granddaughter first.”

A thin smirk crossed Imelda’s lips and despite herself, Victoria smiled too.

“Let me take a look at the damage” she announced suddenly. Before Victoria could even _think_ about protesting, she was halfway along the path and observing the ruined flowerbed.

But somehow, Doucet was long gone. He’d slipped away without so much as a sound.

After a minute, Imelda _hmph_ ed again and turned back to face her. Victoria could hear rustling and mumbling behind her; the rest of the family had been awoken by now as well. Julio’s moustache was ragged and unkempt, Rosita looked downright strange with no flowers in her hair, and Oscar and Felipe were squinting slightly, unaware they’d accidentally put on each other’s glasses.

“Should, I, uh…should I call the police?” Julio asked hesitantly.

“No” Imelda declared. “They’re useless and besides, it’s not like any real damage has been done.”

Rosita let out an indignant sniff over the state of her garden. Imelda pointedly ignored her.

“If it happens again, we call them. Victoria’s right, it could have just been a lost animal. Now let’s just get back to bed, shall we?”  
  


The family nodded and yawned as one, moving back into the house. Victoria was quick to follow them, not wanting to have to be summoned upstairs again, refusing to look back. She made sure to grab her water on the way – there was little point in ever heading into the kitchen in the first place if she didn’t get what she came for – and shut her bedroom door tightly behind her.

Sleep was a long time coming.

*

**7 Days until Día de los Muertos**

By the next morning, after three helpings of _huevos y chorizo_ from Rosita, Victoria felt a lot healthier and happier. She’d even managed to half-convince herself by half past ten that the events of last night had been some bizarre fever dream brought on by stress and that she’d merely been sleepwalking.

Whatever it was, fixing the shoes had become a much easier task, though that may have been due to the calming rhythm of the workshop during the daytime. The sewing machine, hammers and other tools all built an atmosphere that was borderline relaxing for Victoria, even despite the heavy workloads they had to fulfil.

She’d just finished the last stitch when the bell on the counter was rung. Nobody was attending the front of house thanks to the amount of orders, so Victoria got up to see the customer in the next room, with a good idea of who it was.

Then the unthinkable happened. The bell was rung again six times over, with split-second pauses of noticeably different lengths between them. It was, undeniably, a _tune_.

Victoria winced. If she’d heard it, then the rest of the family definitely had. Sure enough, it seemed as if time had stood still. All the noise had stopped. Every eye turned to Mama Imelda, who was squeezing the plimsoll she had in her grip as if throttling the life out of it.

“I think I’ll deal with this customer, mija” she said in a tone that dared someone to argue with her decision. Sure enough, no-one did.

She stalked across the room, flinging the door open and vanishing into the front. The door swung closed, but not to the extent that the conversation outside couldn’t be heard.

“Good morning, lady. That’s a lovely boot you’ve got in your hand, but I was always of the belief that they belonged on your _feet_.”

“What does the sign, placed clearly in the centre of our wall, say in big, bold letters?”

“…no music?”

“No music. So tell me why you felt the urge to ring that…that… _disgusting tune_ out!”

“Oh, you mean the bell. Well, it only lasted three seconds and consisted of seven little sounds. Some would barely call that a melody, let alone music.”

There was the unmistakeable sound of Imelda growling like a panther.

“ _What_ ” she hissed, “do you want?”

“I’m here to pick up a pair of shoes” came the ever-joyful response, not sounding in the least bit fazed. “I left them yesterday and was told to collect them for eleven o’ clock. I understand I’m a tad early, so if they’re not ready yet then by all means, we can continue this scintillating conversation if you wish.”

“I will go back inside and see if they’re ready. _No música_ ” she added as a final warning. Victoria took this as her cue to go through the door, as her grandmother came back in.

“Okay, so just to be clear” Doucet called, “I can’t do _this_.”

And he whistled the exact same tune.

Imelda stopped dead in her tracks. The twins gasped as one. Julio looked ready to dive for shelter and for once, Victoria couldn’t blame him.

She was nearly bowled over as Imelda stormed back out, pulled Doucet across the counter with one hand and gave him a good, firm _whack_ across the face with the other.

_“You come into this zapatería, you abide by its rules!”_ she yelled. _“Take your shoes and leave this place! You’re not welcome here again!_ Sorry for bumping into you, mija” she added in a low voice to Victoria as she passed by. Giving Doucet one last filthy look, she slammed the door behind her so hard that Victoria was surprised the plaster didn’t crack.

It was Doucet who broke the silence, of course.

“What a lovely woman” he said, without a single trace of sarcasm.

“Is this something you do daily, going into establishments and starting fights?” Victoria asked scathingly, placing his shoes down and typing numbers into the till.

“Only on Thursdays. You say that like I go out of my way to do so. I call it my unique charm.”

“Most would refer to it as an inability to keep quiet.”

“Keeping quiet’s one of my few flaws, admittedly.”

“I never would have guessed” she mumbled dryly, passing the shoes over. “Five hundred pesos, _por favor_.”

Doucet was silent for a moment, sticking a hand into his pocket. “Ah.”

His fingers came straight out the bottom. Victoria’s eyes narrowed, knowing full well what he was going to say next.

“I appear not to have five hundred pesos. I don’t suppose I could pay you back later…?”

“No” she said flatly. “You go back out, you get the money, we give you the shoes. No compromises.”

“The shouty woman said I wasn’t allowed to return after this.”

“You’ll just have to face her wrath a second time. And maybe, just maybe, not attempt to provoke her when you do so.”

“Says the one who confronted a violent stranger in her back garden.”

Just like that, the fantasy Victoria had built came crumbling down.

_“Shush!”_ she growled, looking towards the door and hoping nobody was still listening in.

Doucet’s head tilted, giving his smile a rather condescending look.

“I take it the family doesn’t know?”

“ _No_. And it’s going to stay that way. Look, just – get out of here and get your money!”

“As her majesty wishes” he said simply, skipping away. His suit was even filthier from his impromptu boxing match last night, mud and a few petals were splattered across the bottom of the tails, down his trousers and –

“You’re not wearing shoes” Victoria blurted out despite herself.

Doucet frowned slightly, as if unable to see the problem.

“Of course I’m not. You have them.”

From the short distance between them, she could make out a pair of odd socks: one purple with multi-coloured polka dots and another bright pink, with pictures of unicorns. They were so hideously garish that she didn’t understand how on earth she’d missed them the day before.

“You can’t be allowed to just wander around without shoes” Victoria said, more to herself than him. To the Riveras, if a person could afford a pair of shoes, going barefoot in public was tantamount to swearing in church.

“Then it appears we may be at an impasse.”

Victoria huffed through her nose, glad she was still able to do so despite lacking an actual nose itself. It was time she made another positively reckless decision as an experienced Rivera shoemaker. In all honesty, it was starting to be rather unbecoming of her.

She pushed the shoes further towards him, as far as they could go without falling off the counter.

“Put on your shoes” she said. “I will go with you to get your money. But be warned, I will not leave until you do so.”

“The amount of faith you have in me is heart-warming, it really is” he grinned back. The smile never succeeded in truly reaching the empty holes he had for eyes. He slid the shoes onto his feet. “Handsome devils” he said lovingly.

Victoria allowed the rare feeling of pride to swell within her once again.

*

It had taken multiple excuses trying to persuade the rest of the family why she needed to go out, other than _I didn’t make sure a customer was actually able to pay before taking their order_. More material, hunting down a supplier – it wasn’t easy, but she eventually bombarded them with enough details that they evidently decided to just let her go, lest they suffer more confusion.

It hurt a tad, she had to admit. Did they consider her that unimportant, to the extent that they’d just shrug their shoulders and let her leave amidst all their work?

Doucet had taken a pair of red-tinted sunglasses from his breast pocket the second they’d stepped out of the door, covering the soul-sucking holes. He still received the odd look from passers-by as they walked, but she assumed it was merely the meticulous coordination of red across his outfit. Not to mention the way it was then ruined by all the dirt on it.

“These shoes have become surprisingly snug” he commented as the turned the corner that thankfully led away from Plaza de la Cruz.

“Rivera-brand shoes are nothing but the best” Victoria responded idly, reciting one of the business’ mottos.

“Now, if you’re just going to keep bleating memorised lines at me like some kind of sheep, I may as well not try and talk to you.”

_Good._

“What say you to skipping the preliminaries and discussing more pressing matters? Such as what crowbar-man was wanting when he broke into your property.”

_Less good._

“Why do you care?”

“About your safety? Rest assured, I don’t. I just believe it may be of importance in relation to…personal matters of mine.”

“You’re not planning on trying to break one of my bones too, are you?” she asked, only half-jokingly.

He laughed in a way that sounded genuine, but it still had creepily malicious undertones.

“No, no, of course not. Doing such a thing would be terribly rude of me. It’s simply a belief of mine that this mystery fellow could be linked to a case I’m working on.”

_Case._ A very particular choice of words in Victoria’s eyes.

“What are you, a detective?”

“Yes” he replied simply, seeming happy that she’d worked it out.

“With the police?” she probed further.

“…no” he added after a moment’s silence.

That gave her a bit more confidence in the hiring practices of afterlife law enforcement, at least. Despite Mama Imelda’s insistence that the entire department was inept, they obviously still held standards when it came to choosing their detectives.

In her novels, detectives were low-browed, gravel-voiced sleuths who wore fedoras and trench coats, hanging out smoking in back alleys.

The man walking alongside her had a suit so vivacious he was essentially a walking dartboard and he couldn’t be trusted to even own a second pair of shoes. She doubted he had a high success rate.

“Did you die on a case?” she asked, trying to voice her thoughts in a more roundabout way.

“…no” he repeated, pause and all.

And for the first time, Victoria detected something in his voice that wasn’t similar to happiness. Hesitancy, maybe. He was trying to hide it, but he wasn’t comfortable on the subject.

_Well, at least we have that much in common._

He came to a sudden stop by a rocky outcrop, so fast that she almost walked directly into the back of him. Only then did she notice that as they had walked, they’d left the bright lights and bustling noise of the city behind. The footpath had become more cracked and the buildings around them more desolate and colourless. Other than few sour-looking fox alebrijes, there was no sign of life except them.

“Shantytown” she breathed as realisation struck.

Doucet just nodded. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where some familiar faces come in, kiddies. 
> 
> It took me a while to get the image working - at least I hope it's working now, according to the archive it should be - so I hope you all like it. Here's a tumblr link if it doesn't: 
> 
> https://metherarto.tumblr.com/post/619542748723347456/t%C3%ADa-victoria-and-an-oc-anton-doucet
> 
> I just figured it would be fun drawing one of my OCs, as for some reason, I rarely ever do it. I'm hoping to give the both him and Victoria some backstory as this progresses, meaning of course we're most likely going to deviate from canon in more ways than just one. 
> 
> Regardless, I hope you're enjoying reading the back-and-forth banter between these two as much as I enjoy writing it. 
> 
> If you have any thoughts on the narrative, the characters, whatever, PLEASE COMMENT! Once again, comments and feedback are great motivation for me to continue and develop new ideas. 
> 
> Many thanks for reading!


	3. Chichárron

**7 Days until Día de los Muertos**

Whilst Shantytown looked far from welcoming from the outside: stone archways, broken planks and rickety stairs, the atmosphere seemed to strangely become more relaxing the further you entered.

Yes, the climate seemed to change as they descended, a bizarre sort of fog rolling in and clouds seemingly appearing out of nowhere, as if the place carried its own permanent bad mood. Yes, it could use some maintenance: Victoria had tripped on the stairs and almost wrenched one of her own legs out on a moulded plank when her foot fell through it. Anton had found this uproariously funny and didn’t stop laughing until she hit him with a discarded waste paper basket. But once the darkness gave way to multicoloured strings of lights and the depressing splashes of the river to loud laughter and the _chink_ of glasses, she found herself feeling much more relaxed.

This was far from the soul-crushing slum she’d expected to witness. True, it was dilapidated, but it had an endearing sense of community to it.

Then, of course, Doucet’s presence alone was enough to tear that air of happiness to the ground.

As they strolled along the boardwalk, the resident of the hut nearest nudged his neighbour and whispered something. A man and a woman in the next shuffled closer to each other, as if fearing Victoria might attack. One by one, the chatter died and the world seemed to fall silent, until they reached a wooden table in the centre of the makeshift neighbourhood, taken up by three women.

If looks could kill, Victoria knew that Doucet would have died again at least thirty-five times. The woman in the centre of the table, with long, greying hair, slowly put a handful of playing cards down before speaking.

“Hello, Anton” she said stiffly. She’d seemed so happy just a moment ago when they were ten metres away, but now she looked like she hadn’t smiled in decades.

“Tía Yolanda” Doucet replied pleasantly. “You’re looking as ravishing as ever.”

“Don’t you _Tía_ me” she grumbled. “We use that name for family and _you_ are not part of it.”

Doucet just continued grinning in the face of all the cold stares, but by this point Victoria didn’t expect anything different from him. Right now, she was more concerned with making herself as small as possible.

“Why, Yolanda, I’m wounded. What did I do to earn such ire?”

“Do you want the list?”

“…what did I do _this month_ to earn such ire?”

“You dumped those cockroaches in the stew.”

“It was an experiment. I needed to see at which concentration food begins to taste buggy.”

“You said my name was stupid.”

“But it _is_ stupid.”

“ _Anton.”_

“Alright, okay” Doucet conceded, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not Shantytown’s most well-liked member, I get it. Listen, do you know where Chichárron is? I just need to talk to him and I’ll be out of your hair.”

One of the other ladies motioned to a shack to the right, which, unlike the others, had no light coming from its windows and no signs of life except for a steady plume of smoke coming from the chimney.

“Ah, thank you, um… _Lydia_ , was it?”

“ _Linda_!”

“And what a lovely name it is, too.”

Linda just glowered and downed her shot glass.

Doucet turned as if he was on wheels and strolled away. Just as Victoria made to follow him, she heard herself being addressed.

“None of this is being directed at _you_ , dear. I hope you know that.”

She turned back to see the women smiling at her amicably. She didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded numbly.

“How did someone as nice-looking as yourself get caught up with him?” Yolanda asked. Victoria got the feeling that everyone in a mile’s radius was listening in.

“He owes me some money” she explained, as vaguely as she could. The women tittered and someone in the background gave a bark of laughter.

“Anton’s got a horrible track record when it comes to giving things back, prima. Even worse than poor old Héctor.”

Victoria didn’t know why Yolanda had just addressed her as a cousin or who this Héctor character was, but neither did it matter. She shrugged in a way she hoped appeared nonchalant.

“Well, I’ve got a good track record for hitting people with boots, so he’d better watch out.”

She didn’t, of course. At most, she’d taken a swing at a few bullies back in her childhood and ended up with her face in the mud, crying. But that was part of the past and not something she was eager to relive. Hopefully her more successful stern looks would make what she was saying seem true.

The residents seemed to buy it. More of them laughed this time, she was certain she could even hear a few give an appreciative whistle. Too many people were looking at her, paying attention to her.

She didn’t like it.

“I’d better follow him” she blurted and made towards Doucet, who was rapping on the hut’s door.

“Keep an eye on him, prima” she heard Yolanda call after her. “If he misbehaves, give him a whack from us.”

*

Chichárron was just as unhappy to see Doucet as all the other Shantytown residents, but Victoria got the feeling that unlike when it came to them, Doucet was no special case. The man’s entire face seemed almost custom _built_ for frowning. Trying to imagine him with a smile resulted in him looking completely unnatural in Victoria’s mind.

The inside of the hut was a mess, every surface crammed with dust-covered rubbish that was either faded, worn, or in desperate need of repair. Shelves, counters, even an empty and rusted fridge held a trove of shapeless objects she couldn’t identify thanks to the shadows.

“Your wife is trying to analyse me” he growled as a way of greeting. He was a portly man, much too small for the hammock he was lying in, dressed in a weathered hat and flannel shirt.

Victoria didn’t know what to feel insulted about first: the fact that he thought her so obvious, or his insinuation that she was somehow related to this grinning idiot.

“Wife? If only I was so lucky” Doucet chuckled in reply. Victoria decided to settle the issue by glaring at the back of his head. Chichárron caught her doing it and snorted.

“Well, at least she doesn’t take your _mierda_.”

“Keep looking on the bright side, there’s a good man.”

Victoria followed him as he strolled up to the hammock, looking around at all the junk and kicking up dust as if he owned the place.

“Have you been redecorating? I love what you’ve done with the panelling. Very classy.”

“Why are you here, Anton?”

“What, can a fellow not visit his favourite house-bound semi-cripple from time to time?”

Chichárron gave him a long, hard look.

“…I need that thousand pesos I won.”

Chichárron growled and threw a rubber duck at him. Not exactly being the world’s deadliest weapon, the toy bounced harmlessly off the front of Doucet’s head.

“I told you last month, ratbag, I’m not giving you that money. You cheated!”

“So did you. I just cheated better.”

“It was still my game, until you set the table alight and used the smoke so no-one would notice you swapping your cards.”

“Oh Chichárron, why not let bygones be bygones? It’s not as if it was worth anything…”

“Primo Carlos was going to sell it for a week’s firewood.”

“Eh, warmth is overrated.”

This time, a basketball was flung. Doucet sidestepped it, but Victoria wasn’t as fast and it skimmed the side of her face, knocking her glasses off-balance.

“My dear friend, as enjoyable as it is to talk to you, I’m afraid we must speed this up a tad. You see my lovely companion here?”

Victoria bristled at “ _lovely_ ”.

“I seem to have misplaced my last wad of notes, as I realised when I attempted to pay her for her services. Now I’m sure you understand that I don’t want to be perceived as some kind of _criminal_ –“

Victoria rolled her eyes and she could swear Chichárron did too at the exact same time.

“- so if you could possibly hand me my earnings, I can give her her payment, you can potentially keep the remaining fifty pesos depending on your attitude and I can get back to my case. Everyone, as they say, wins.”

Chichárron’s jaw tightened. It was clear he was wrestling the urge to comply as well as the urge to wring Doucet’s neck. Victoria had to admit, she could sympathise with him.

_“Fine”_ he huffed eventually. “But this is for her sake, not yours, understand?”

“Gladly!”

“Yolanda has it.”

Doucet huffed slightly.

“Typical” he uttered, before stalking back outside and pulling the door shut behind him. All that could be heard was the odd bit of sloshing from the river and the distant laughter of a couple of residents, who seemed to have lightened up once again. Victoria was starting to feel a bit awkward, just standing there in the middle of someone else’s home.

“So, what are you then?”

Victoria turned to face Chichárron.

“I’m sorry?”

“ _Services_ , he said. What kind?” he paused. “You ain’t a prostitute, are ya?”

Victoria tripped over her tongue several times as she spluttered indignantly.

_How would that even **work** down here?_

“ _No_! No, I’m – _no!”_

He just shrugged.

“Hey, when you get to where I am, you don’t bother to judge. It’s not like it isn’t a common sight around here, I mean…people get desperate in their final years, y’know?”

“You mean before…?” She let the question hang, pretty sure she already knew the answer.

“Before they’re forgotten, yeah. I never saw the point trying to get it all to drag on for longer. If you’re gonna go, might as well go quickly. Oh, well. Least I still got some dignity.”

Victoria just eyed up the overflowing cupboards and gave a non-committal hum, hoping the disbelief wasn’t too evident.

“No need to be getting so snooty” he snapped. Obviously she hadn’t done a very good job of it. “You’re probably one of the well-remembered folk, aren’t ya? You may be laughing now – but we all end up down here in the end.”

“Thanks for the uplifting message” Victoria quipped, raising an eyebrow and trying to ignore the ominous feeling settling in her stomach.

Chichárron just lay silently, staring her directly in the eye. For a moment, Victoria wondered whether she’d gone too far. But he eventually gave a sardonic smirk and shuffled around a little in his hammock.

“Y’know, you and the freak ought to hang out more. I swear, you’re pretty much made for each other.”

A question that had been resting on Victoria’s tongue made it to the front of her mind.

“Why is he so disliked down here?”

“Who, Anton? Well, why is anyone disliked? Everyone’s got their own reason. He’s evasive, he’s uppity, he talks and talks and never shuts the hell up…”

“…but your reasons are different?” Victoria asked, sensing something more behind his words.

“…yeah. Yeah, you could say that.” He leaned the furthest forward Victoria had seen him go yet, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial manner. “Y’know why people come down here in the first place, right?”

“I think so, yes. They don’t have a photo on the ofrenda, their bones start to wear, they lose their jobs and are shunned from the public eye, correct?”

“Yup. See, Anton was just like everyone else, y’know? Young man, no other dead relatives…the classic tragedy. He’d been dead for about...I dunno, two years, maybe…when he first showed up, with no photo on the ofrenda for the second time in a row. I thought he was still gonna go back and give it a try the next year – the fresh-faced folk keep at it for a bit until they realise it’s useless…“

He paused and snorted surreptitiously. “Well, most ‘a them, anyway.”

Victoria let him finish his private joke before he leaned back in again.

“But he didn’t. It was if he didn’t even care. Like he’d expected it.”

“Strange” Victoria commented.

Chichárron shook his head.

“Nah, that ain’t the strange part. See, he came down here about five years after I first arrived. And as you can see missy, I haven’t aged too well. The end’s coming for me pretty soon, I can feel it. So why the hell am I wasting away in this hut and he’s still fresh as a daisy despite being under the same circumstances?”

Victoria eyed the door. Even though it wasn’t exactly a state secret, she’d feel seriously uncomfortable if Doucet happened to return in the midst of their conversation.

“Well, you can still be remembered even without a photo, can’t you? People can still tell stories, can’t they?” she tried.

Chichárron nodded. “But stories don’t last long. They’re easily forgotten. The details get skewed, people forget names and places and what have you. You know what _really_ lasts forever?”

Even the river seemed quiet by this point.

_“Notoriety.”_

It made sense, Victoria had to admit. If a person’s life was ruined, it only stood the reason that they’d remember the person that ruined it, albeit with extreme dislike or burning hatred. And naturally, the more people that hated you, the better you’d be remembered.

Yet already, the more logical and compassionate side of Victoria’s brain was struggling to play devil’s advocate.

“I’d admit that your friend is a bit… _strange_ , senor. But… _notorious?_ He may be creepy, but he seems harmless. I mean, I - after all, what evil villain loses a wad of banknotes via a large and obvious hole in his pocket?”

“First” Chichárron said, ticking the points off his fingers, “he isn’t my friend. Second, no-one knows anything about who he used to be or where he came from. He flat-out refuses to tell us himself and always avoids the question. Thirdly, anyone who’s anyone knows how to recognise acting. And Doucet’s one hell of an actor. What’s he got to hide?”

Victoria’s retort died on her metaphorical tongue.

The door to the shack slammed open and Doucet waltzed back in, fingering through a stack of notes.

“Four-ninety-eight, four-ninety-nine…five hundred. Victoria” he declared, outstretching a fist full of notes. Victoria took them and slid them down the pocket of her apron. Chichárron watched her intently, before turning back to Doucet.

“What’s this case of yours, anyway?”

Doucet was silent, fidgeting with his half of the money. Chichárron just sighed helplessly.

“You’re kidding. De la Cruz _again_?”

Doucet shoved the notes into an inner pocket and fiddled with his bow tie, still not speaking.

“I can’t believe I have to keep telling you this. Leave the guy alone. Yeah, I get that he’s a self-satisfied loudmouth, but I could be as easily describing you. Why’ve you got to make him the suspect for _everything_?”

“Because he usually is.”

“His lawyers are going to catch on that you’re giving out a fake address by the time they send their seventeenth cease and desist order, you know. Do you _want_ his bodyguards storming down here and ransacking my place again?”

Victoria had lost the trail of this conversation. The most she knew about Ernesto de la Cruz was that he was a famous singer, both in life and death. Obviously, given her family history, nothing more than that.

“What’s he suspected of?” she interjected.

Chichárron snorted. “Everything, apparently. Arson, vandalism, cats stuck up trees, you name it. I’m betting Anton here would try to tag earthquakes and hurricanes on him if he could. It’s why barely anyone wants to hire him, he always wants to believe the man is up to something.”

He frowned. A thought seemed to have just struck him.

“Hang on. Who _did_ hire you?”

“Our friend with the silly goatee paid me quite a substantial amount to look into De la Cruz for plagiarism.”

“Héctor?” Chichárron asked, his features suddenly alight with what looked to be genuine concern. “Why does he suddenly care? He’s barely got any possessions left to pay you _with_. He – hold on, he doesn’t even _play_ anymore!”

Doucet shrugged. “Desperate times, perhaps. He’s fading away, so he tries to get revenge the only way he can.”

Chichárron laughed, but there was little real joy behind it.

“So that’s what you are now, huh? Some avenging angel?”

“Of course not” Doucet said simply. “I’m just a detective looking for work. The involvement of De la Cruz is merely a coincidence.”

Chichárron gave a disbelieving little sniff. Then he paused and sniffed again.

“You smell funny.”

“It’s my natural musk.”

“You didn’t smell that way before you left.”

“Dearest Yolanda may have baptised me with her whiskey when I went to collect my earnings.”

“ _Baptised_?” both him and Victoria asked at the same time.

“She threw it at me.”

Chichárron sighed. “You just can’t keep it shut, can you?”

Doucet sighed huffily, like a child in a strop. “It’s not my fault her dress looks like shredded newspaper.”

“Apologise.”

The word was out of Victoria’s mouth before it reached her brain. Doucet’s gaze turned to her and his head tilted slightly. The gaping chasms peered at her over the glasses.

“I’m sorry?”

“Apologise to Yolanda for saying that. These people are already being forgotten, the last thing they need is you showing up each day and selfishly adding to their misery.”

He opened his mouth to speak, or more possibly, complain, but she refused to give him the opportunity. Ignoring the bemused look on Chichárron’s face, she grabbed him around the arm and frog-marched him out of the door and to the table.

“Apologise” she repeated sternly. Yolanda and the other two women shared a look, half-surprised, half-smug.

“Yolanda” Doucet began in an overdramatic fashion, “I apologise for the life, or, to be more precise, _afterlife_ -ruining remark I made approximately three minutes ago when I likened your fashion choice to a –“

Victoria dug her heel into his foot.

_“Ow._ I’m sorry for insulting your dress.”

Yolanda’s brow raised and she turned to Victoria. “My, my, you certainly have him well-trained.”

The smile Victoria gave was wry, but genuine.

*

“I must admit, I feel rather embarrassed.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ve just reinstated ninety years’ worth of repressed and embarrassing memories in one moment. You, my dear, are an exceptionally talented lady.”

They’d since left Shantytown to the raucous approval of their new crowd, Yolanda promising her a free drink if she ever returned and Chichárron shouting across the boardwalk that she’d really made his day. Whilst all Doucet got was a long face. Figuratively. She doubted even pliers could shift that smile, as it remained ever-glued to his features.

She ignored his empty compliment and began walking back the way they’d come. Dusk was settling in and she aimed to get back to the zapateria before seven ‘o clock. That way, she could prepare dinner as an apology for not helping out for half of the day.

The sound of a second pair of footsteps behind her proved incredibly distracting.

“Why are you following me?” she asked through gritted teeth. This man was starting to become seriously irritating.

_I’ve got your money, you’ve got your shoes. Our business is finished. Now go away._

“No particular reason” he hummed. “I’m just following you up this way because it seems to be the most interesting.”

“Once we reach the city centre, I’ll give you ten minutes. By that point, I expect you to have left me alone and gone somewhere else.”

He was silent for a blessed fifteen seconds.

“Did I ever tell you about how me and Chichárron met?”

“Allow me to repeat myself: _I don’t care_.”

“It has pirates in it.”

Victoria decided it best not to respond at this point. Maybe he’d finally get the hint and go away.

“Well, if you replace the word _pirates_ with _estate agents_ …” he trailed off slightly. He coughed in a pointedly exaggerated way before he opened his mouth again. “How much does your job at that stifling little shoe shop mean to you?”

“ _Pardon_?”

“I feel I may have touched a nerve, so I’ll rephrase. Do you do your job out of personal interest or just because it’s a family tradition?”

“Both.”

“ _Both_ ” Doucet repeated. “That’s…maddeningly unhelpful.”

The lights of the city centre and the noise of trolleys above their heads became more prominent.

“How would you like to join me on my case?”

Victoria had to admit, she wasn’t expecting him to ask _that_.

“Why?” she asked in a cool voice, refusing to turn around and let her surprise be known.

“Well, why not? You’re smart, you clearly know how to handle yourself…your skills are simply _wasted_ as a shoemaker.”

“Oh, and they aren’t with _you_?” Victoria snarled, spinning around and jabbing him the chest with her finger. “Some nobody detective with a fixation on a celebrity musician?”

If Doucet was insulted, his face betrayed no emotion to prove it.

“ _Private_ detective with a fixation on a celebrity musician.”

Victoria wanted to scream. “Oh, you are _hopeless!_ ”

“Why, Miss Rivera! That’s one of the nicest things anybody’s ever said to me!”

She gave him the dirtiest glare she could muster and stormed off, her speed so fast that he had to lightly jog to match her pace. It gave her a sort of vindictive pleasure to watch it.

“I like you, Victoria. You make me laugh. So, my offer will always stand, if you wish to accept it.”

_Great. The egocentric narcissist likes me._

“Don’t hold your breath” she scowled, turning to face him once more, but the sentence drifted off as she did so.

The street was empty, like he was never there. It was an exact repeat of that moment in the garden just last night. She stood stock-still as the world continued to move around her, half-expecting him to jump out from behind a bin, before folding her arms and continuing her trudge back to the house.

_One day, I’m going to learn how he does that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch out, Victoria, your Imelda is showing. 
> 
> Chichárron was so much fun to write. If I can fit him in again later, I definitely will. As for Héctor, I promise he'll appear in more than just off-handed mentions before long. 
> 
> So, will Victoria cave and agree to join the detective on his journey? Well, of course she is. It would have been a pretty short story otherwise. 
> 
> PLEASE GIVE FEEDBACK! I'm more dependent on it than my ability to breathe in and out.


	4. Rising Action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit longer than my past few chapters, but at the same time still feels to short for me. I hope nothing appears disjointed.
> 
> Note: I've edited the age at which Anton appears to be in the first chapter so as to fit the backstory I'm planning on giving him (yes, just going to ruin that surprise here). Similarly, when Chichárron asks him who hired him to look into Ernesto de la Cruz, I've changed the name "Senor Rivera" to "our friend with the silly hat". Otherwise, Victoria would make a connection much too quickly and this story would be over long before it began. A silly continuity error on my part, fixed in case anyone had noticed it too.

_The cellar was good accommodation, all things considered._

_The other tenants and even the landlady glared at him as he passed, no doubt waiting for the day that a common, unemployed vagrant like him could finally be evicted. The cellar was sort of the last scrape of the barrel, but it could have been worse._

_It was cold, but they had blankets. The rats made good company, even if they tended to bite a little. They even had a window. It was obstructed by bars and cobwebs, only reaching street level. But it was a window nonetheless. A rare commodity in cellars._

_He approved._

_Ignoring the way his upstairs neighbours sneered at him as he descended the uneven stone steps, he rapped his knuckles on the moulding wooden door and walked in._

_And there she sat._

_Small, in a ragged skirt, hair cut short and with ridiculously cherub-like features. Smiling at him hopefully like she expected him to be able to make something of his life._

_“How’d it go?” she asked, stirring the pot above the fire. The flames were weak and pathetic, so it looked like another four-hour wait for their stew tonight._

_He pondered the ways he could let her down the lightest._

_“Well, it was…unremarkable. They said they’d send a letter should I get the job…um…”_

_His smile withered under her scrutinising gaze. But rather than scold his vagueness, she sighed sadly and looked down at the pot. Which was somehow worse._

_“Oh, dioso…”_

_The urge to break down crying gripped his chest suddenly. Steeling his resolve, he brushed the dirt from his jacket and tugged at his collar. He really wished he had more to fiddle with._

_“Missing something from up there?” she asked, letting go of the spoon she was using to stir the dinner with and pulling out a small wrapped box from beside her lap. He tentatively accepted it as she held it out to him._

_Inside was a bow tie. Red and pristine. Was she psychic, or was he just that easy to read?_

_“How…how much did this cost you?” he asked, feeling ashamed of himself. Look at him. A twenty-year old man, bowled over by the site of a simple piece of clothing. Just went to show much **he** was able to gather for his family. _

_“It doesn’t matter” she smiled, tone light but signifying that he wasn’t to probe further. He’d since learned to accept her answers. “I was saving it for your birthday, but I thought it would be nicer to present it to you now, whilst we still had a roof over our heads.”_

_Despite everything, he still managed a smirk._

_“Gee, thanks.”_

_“Let’s be honest, you really need to learn how to keep quiet” she grinned, “I mean, what happened with the last place you visited?”_

_“Oh, joy. Here we go.”_

_“That’s right. You go into that furniture shop, practically begging for employment, and you still make sure to irritate the owners before you leave. Why? Is your life incomplete without filling in some sort of aggravation quota?”  
  
_

_“I think it was more the fact I had absolutely no experience with woodwork.”_

_“Mm-hm. And_ not _because you insulted the man’s beard?”_

_“…no.”_

_“You’re a fantastic liar” she sighed sarcastically. “Let’s just hope our señorita pequeña down here doesn’t inherit your massive mouth.”_

_He patted her stomach. The bump wasn’t yet obvious, but give it a few weeks and it would be._

_“Hear that?” he theatrically shouted at what was soon to be a living, breathing child. “She’s so sure you’re going to be a girl. You’re not even out of the womb yet and she’s already dictating your life. Welcome to hell, niñita.”_

_He was unable to escape arm-punching range in time. He pretended to be mortally wounded, she laughed and they both shared a moment’s peace as the stew continued to boil. Before she could get back to what she was doing, he took her hands in his, kneeling down on the floor by her stool and looking her directly in her mismatched eyes._

_“I’ll find a job, diosa. I promise.”_

*

**6 Days until Día de los Muertos**

Victoria could fondly remember a week ago, when the library was one of her favourite places to be on a Sunday.

Come hell or high water, _la Zapatería Rivera_ remained open six days a week (with Día de Muertos or the end of time being the natural exceptions), leaving the family only one day to do whatever they wanted on their own. Naturally, theatres, cinemas and the plaza were a no-go, so they’d often split up and find different ways to entertain themselves.

Rosita would often read trashy magazines or tend to her garden. Victoria internally shuddered at the thought of what the complete mess she’d have to tend to today.

Oscar and Felipe would say they tinkered with new inventions, though she’d often doubt whether any actual _inventing_ was taking place, given the ceaseless noise from their bedroom. It was almost a game of theirs by now; see how loud they could make the bangs and clatters before Imelda came charging up the stairs, boot in hand and murder in her eyes.

The matriarch herself would sew, sit with Pepita or even just do leftover housework if she was bored enough. After all, if it were one thing Imelda Rivera didn’t like, it was idleness. Julio would often try to pitch in as well, offering to wash dishes or fold the clothes. Victoria always got the feeling that even after seventy years of marriage to her daughter, he still remained desperate for the approval of his fearsome mother-in-law.

And Victoria herself, of course, gravitated to where the books were. The Central Library was just a few streets away from the main trolley station, making it easily accessible and meaning she had no excuse not to go. A gothic stone building consisting of five vast floors of shelves and silence. Perfect.

Or so she’d thought.

She’d arrived there once again today, looking for a good novel to bury her metaphorical nose in, but constantly found herself walking into the crime section. She was almost ashamed of herself upon realising her unconscious mistake.

_The last thing I want is to be reminded of that self-satisfied lunatic._

But by that point, she’d all but sealed her fate. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t find a book that both interested her and didn’t in any way involve a detective or a grisly crime that needed solving. She was seriously ready to pull the plug on the idea and head home early – something which in forty years of being dead she’d never done once – when a second thought struck her.

Libraries, after all, held more than fictional paperbacks. There were archives and newspapers on some of the floors above, she remembered, both from the land of the living and the dead. Maybe she could look up this Doucet man and see what sort of history he had. If he’d had any major success, it would of course be mentioned in the news at some point.

Smiling politely to an old couple as she strode up the stairs and bathed in the light streaming through a stained-glass window, she looked over to one of the computers by the wall. She only had a tenuous grip on the things herself; knowing how a mouse and keyboard worked but never more than that. Thankfully, an information sheet for those who’d been dead for a significantly long amount of time was provided above and she searched up the man’s name with little real trouble.

The computer made a muffled _ping_ sound and a reference code came up for one article. Just one, from the land of the living.

_Oh well, it’s better than nothing._

Moving deeper into the expanses of the shelves, she noticed the noise levels get even quieter than before and the light levels getting dimmer as the papers in front of her got older. An obvious technique to avoid damage to the aging paper, even if it resulted in some of the low-level bulbs giving off a barely-audible but nonetheless grating hum in the silence.

_There it is._

Pulling out a single plastic pocket from a row of thousands, if not millions, she examined the newspaper underneath. Below the pink slip on the front threatening fines in the event of damage, was a picture of a young man with wide eyes and an equally wide smile.

There was no mistaking it. It was him.

She dwelled on the image for a while, standing there in that empty area. She’d initially assumed it was just a candid shot that he’d had little time to prepare for, but further examination of his face made it look less embarrassing and a lot more disturbing.

The smile was still wide, impossibly so. It almost looked as if the corners of his mouth were going to tear under the pressure. The rims of his eyes were black in a way that couldn’t just be shadow, accompanied by dark veins that were only just visible. Victoria got the impression that the man was wanting to scream, but was terrified of doing so.

_MAN FOUND DEAD IN SMALL TOWN CENTRE,_ the headline read.

_Residents of the idle village of Emiliano Zapata were horrified this morning when they left their homes to discover a dead body in their main street._

_The body, believed to be 28-year old man Anton Doucet, was first spotted by merchants setting up for market day. At the moment, very little is known regarding why Doucet was killed, but police are certain as to how: a cut throat, not too deep, but deep enough to result in the man bleeding out._

Well, she’d been close on her guess as to how old he’d been on death. Only two to three years off. Victoria felt vaguely ill, but forced herself to keep reading.

_Evidence first pointed to suicide, but this theory was challenged due to the randomness of the place where the attempt supposedly occurred. No resident believes the man to be a local, and as a result, the new working theory is that he was a traveller passing through the town who was possibly robbed and killed._

_Police have promised to give more information as the case develops._

And that was it. The rest of the front page just discussed local scandals, the latest recipes and other such garbage.

“Anything interesting?”

Victoria gave an undignified _eep_ and nearly tore the newspaper in half.

_“How long have you been standing behind me?”_ she hissed as loudly as she could in her current environment, spinning around.

Anton, it seemed, had not yet mastered the subtle art of an indoor voice.

“Long enough.” He eyed up the paper. “I see I’ve left an impression on you. Found anything juicy?”

She coughed and spluttered for a second, trying to recover from the shock. He just chuckled.

“So…this is definitely you?” she asked, pointing to the picture.

“Yup.”

“I…um…” She found herself unusually short on words.

“You can ask” he stated, sounding vaguely amused.

“Okay. _Was_ it a suicide, or a robbery?”

“Suicide.”

“Oh” she managed, unsure of how to continue. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged, but didn’t say anything else, causing her to believe it was high time she steered the conversation out of these dangerous waters.

“More to the point, what are you doing here?” She forced the authority to return to her voice; it sounded jarring and horrible. Once again, however, Anton didn’t seem in the least bit perturbed.

Her thoughts ground to a halt. _Anton?_ Since when had they been on first-name terms?

“Research” he responded simply, turning to the shelves as if what he was looking for would jump in front of him.

Victoria couldn’t help but chuckle. He tilted his head towards her as he’d done the other day, a questioning look to his grin.

“Sorry” she said, covering her mouth. “That was startlingly rude of me.”

She coughed in an attempt to hide her embarrassment.

“You just don’t strike me as the type to _do_ research, is all.”

“Why ever not? I _am_ a detective. What else could you possibly call the bedrock of a successful investigation?”

“From the way I’ve seen _you_ act? Punching people.”

“Punching people _is_ fun, but you’ve naturally got to make sure they’re the guilty party first. Which is where the research comes in.”

She’d never have expected him to be able to process such a logical concept.

“Indeed” she agreed. Her book-picking ability had failed her and the newspaper had told her all it would ever tell, so she decided to focus on him for entertainment. “What are you looking into, may I ask?”

He pulled his own stack of newspapers from under his arm, motioning for her to follow him to a table by the wall. He unceremoniously dumped them on it, creating an echoing _thud_ that made her cringe as it reverberated off the otherwise silent walls. Once she was happy that none of the library staff were going to leap out from behind the nearest pillar and fine them, she helped him spread them out and examined the front covers.

_WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN BACK ALLEY,_ one screamed at her.

_SECOND VICTIM KILLED BY MACHETE ATTACKER,_ shouted a second.

_POLICE NAME KILLER “THE INVISIBLE MAN”_

_“INVISIBLE MAN” STRIKES AGAIN_

There were dozens of them. Not a single one was related to something different.

“The “ _Invisible Man_ ”?” she questioned, looking to him.

“Serial killer” he responded, talking as if they were focused on cute puppy alebrijes rather than brutal murder. “Never caught. Attack wounds on the victims always suggested he wielded a machete of sorts. Witnesses to his attacks - well, at least the ones that weren’t murdered themselves – could never describe him, as he supposedly wore dark, nondescript clothes and covered his face.”

He turned to look at her.

“Sound familiar?”

The figure from that night in the garden immediately sprung to her mind. If Victoria had a physical heart, chances were it would have leapt in her throat.

“What, that was – that was _him?_ ”

Anton started piling the papers back up again, shaking his head and allowing her to breathe a slight sigh of relief.

“No, I don’t think so. He was much too short, for starters. The only distinguishable thing about him was his rather tall height. Also, the weapon was completely wrong, if you remember. A crowbar? Really? A machete would be much more efficient and much more consistent with his MO.”

_“His?”_ Victoria repeated. “How do you know it was a man?”

Doucet’s smile grew impossibly wider.

“Never miss a trick, do you? Like I told you the other day, wasted potential.”

He let the papers sit on the desk, patting the top down.

“I met him one night when I was alive. He spoke. He was definitely a man. Unfortunately, that was as much as I was able to work out before he then tried to butcher me. The charming fellow I encountered in your back garden, once I removed the bottom half of his mask, had a jaw much too heavy to be a woman’s. Overall, I’d say the only thing the Invisible Man and our not-so-friendly neighbourhood intruder have in common is a mask and a gender.”

Victoria was slightly stunned. He’d actually met a serial killer and lived to tell the tale. Now _that_ was something out of her bargain-bin novels. She adjusted her glasses and folded her arms as she spoke, determined to maintain a professional air. There was no need to inflate the man’s ego further.

She looked back at the articles, noticing how some of the images had been blotted out and edited in a way that conveniently removed the gorier bits of the corpses.

“That isn’t just a simple murder” she remarked, putting a hand to her chest. “Look, there’s slashes all over. Lots of blood…and I imagine the point where the picture has been cut off is hiding quite a bit, too.”

“Yes, it does. I’ve got the full images somewhere if you’d like a look.” His voice was deliriously cheerful; he seemed to be under the impression that he had just offered her a real treat.

“ _Gracías, pero no_. I’m fine.”

“Well, to put it briefly, you’re half right. No, it wasn’t just a quick kill. All the bodies were missing a limb or a head, or…well, just some part. Further investigation suggested cannibalism, but they couldn’t find any evidence. After all, a cannibal tends not to leave any. Are you alright, Victoria? You look rather nauseous.”

She chose not to answer, clutching herself tightly as something stirred in her memory. A book she’d read of old Hispanic folklore when she was a child. One that had traumatised her for months afterwards and left Mama Imelda lecturing her parents about being more careful with what she let their daughter look at.

_“Pishtacos”_ she breathed. Much to her surprise, Anton nodded in what seemed strangely like agreement. “The mythical monsters that would kill indiscriminately and take their body fats for food.”

One passage discussed some Pishtacos selling the unused body parts on, disguised as fried chicharrones. Needless to say, it put her off eating for a while, which in retrospect probably contributed to one of her many fevers.

She rubbed her eyes to purge the images and stop her imagination from running away with her.

“But they’re just myths though, aren’t they?” she asked him. She prided herself on being a logical woman, but assurance from anyone just about then would certainly have helped her feel better.

She was about to be sorely disappointed.

“The thing is, there’s no way of knowing. Every myth is based partially in truth, including the very world we’re standing in right now. Years ago, whilst you were alive, would you have believed in the existence of a city for the dead? Or a slum for those about to fade from reality? Or would you have just dismissed it as a myth or legend, made up to comfort the terminally ill, or those left to grieve?”

“…thanks. You’re fantastic at cheering me up.”

“I sense resentment in your tone.”

“A nicer person would take this time to reassure me that monsters are works of fiction and superstition.” Even as the words left her mouth, she couldn’t believe she was saying them, fully aware of how childish she sounded.

His head tilted.

“You mean, if I was someone else, I would have taken this time to lie to you?”

“Well…yes.”

“In that case, Victoria, Pishtacos cannot possibly be real. Even though the reported killings have been very similar to those supposedly committed by them, and the same type of crime has dated back for almost a hundred years now – which is likely much longer than one lone killer could possibly have been alive – there is no hard evidence to say they have existed at all.”

It was as good a comfort as she was going to get, she supposed. She looked away from the papers, desperate to change the subject back to something less intense.

“So, just what does the Invisible Man – or Pishtacos, for that matter - have to do with your case, then?”

“Absolutely nothing” Doucet responded happily, turning around and stalking away once again, leaving both Victoria and his pile of newspapers in the dust. It was an astonishing anti-climax.

She internally grumbled at the thought of having to scamper after him again like a lost little puppy, but did it anyway, stopping only to grab a few for a read back at home.

“Where are you off to?” she asked once she’d caught up with him by the front doors. She sincerely hoped she didn’t sound too interested.

“Someplace where I can focus on the case at hand, that’s where. First, I’m going to liberate some documents from Senor de la Cruz.”

“Liberate?”

“…steal.”

Victoria was really beginning to understand Chichárron’s frustrations.

“The man’s tried to place God knows how many restraining orders on you and you think it’s a good idea to now try and steal from him?”

“Well, he’s certainly not going to give them up willingly.”

“Okay, genuine question. In solving crimes, how many do you inadvertently commit in the process?”

“I’ve never really paid attention. But don’t worry, I’m never caught.”

“That fails to make me feel any more relaxed.”

“Good job I don’t care about your state of relaxation, then.”

They were approaching the market, crossing over the canal and into a crowd of sombreros and tied-up hair buns as people did their afternoon shopping. Victoria found herself having to raise her voice to be heard, determined not to let him have the last word.

“And what about the man from the garden?”

“What about him?” She could have sworn there was a sarcastic edge to his response.

“When are you going to look into _that_?”

“Never.”

“I - what?”

“Why would I? It’s not related to the plagiarism case. Neither have you hired me to investigate it.”

She sighed. So that’s what he wanted.

“I see. It’s all about money with you, isn’t it?”

“Isn’t everything?”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

Annoyance overwhelming her, she grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around to face her. Never mind that they were in a public place, she was telling him this there and then.

“Like _that_. Acting all indifferent despite clearly showing enough of an interest back in the library. Surprisingly enough, I want you to succeed, Senor Doucet, really. Yes, you’re a bit of a _cabrón_ , but I want to see you solve this case, especially if it’s for a man who will soon be forgotten.”

“For a nearly-forgotten man _who paid me_ ” Anton cut across her.

That did it. She slipped her boot effortlessly from her foot and for once, landed her hit. The heel whacked the side of his skull, causing it to spin uncontrollably and his glasses to slide downwards so one lens was resting against his teeth.

“But do _not_ ” she snarled, “talk to me like an idiot. Because I am not.”

The one chasm his glasses weren’t covering up had widened slightly in surprise, but returned to its usual cool demeanour. He slowly lifted a finger and moved the boot away from his face. Victoria lowered it and put it back on, ignoring the stares from people in the vicinity.

“I don’t think you’re an idiot, Miss Rivera” he said calmly. His grin had a sudden warmth to it, borderline sincerity. “You’ve proven yourself to be level-headed and much better an acquaintance than most of the morons I’ve met down here. But unfortunately, whilst I may feel a little sympathy for certain people, I don’t work for free.”

Victoria twiddled her thumbs silently.

“Trust me” he added, “if you were an idiot, there’d have been no way I would have invited you to join me.”

She’d forgotten about that. She nodded, unsure of what else to do, reverting back to the mental standby of completing a business transaction.

“ _Vicita_! I didn’t expect to see you around here!”

Anton quickly shoved the glasses back up to their proper position, whilst Victoria flinched upon hearing her aunt’s embarrassing nickname being cried at her from across the market. Sure enough, Rosita ran through the crowd, embracing her in a usual bone-crushing hug.

Her aunt was the only person who Victoria allowed to call her such names, as was the case with the intimate physical contact. Unfortunately, it was hard to enjoy it on this occasion, as she heard Anton snort surreptitiously, no doubt aware of how irritating she would find it if he held it against her.

“What are you doing here, mija?” she asked, immediately bombarding her with questions as she put her niece down. It was only then that she noticed Anton. “And who’s this?”

Anton bent forward slightly, extending a hand in greeting.

“Anton Doucet, Private Investigator” he announced smoothly. Rosita giggled and shook it enthusiastically. Victoria couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

“Such manners!” Rosita exclaimed. Then her face became much more conspiratorial in appearance. “So, what were you two up to this afternoon?”

Uh-oh. Victoria knew _that_ look. Her aunt, whilst a lovely woman with the patience of a saint and the ability to cook like it was nobody’s business, also happened to be a massive gossip and hysterical romantic. If she thought she could see a bond being formed, she’d try and spur it on, no mater how unwelcome her interference happened to be. That look was the first stage of Victoria realising that she’d noticed the two of them standing rather closely to each other and gotten the wrong idea.

“I was at the library doing some research, my dear” Anton responded, adjusting his bow tie. “Victoria here, being the good-willed woman that she is, decided to generously give up her free time and assist.”

_Laying it on a bit thick, aren’t you?_

“Did she now?” Rosita asked, turning to her, eyebrow raising and smile growing wider. Victoria responded by turning her attention away from her aunt and glaring at Anton.

Anton opened and closed his mouth three or four times before saying anything more, obviously wondering which answer was less likely to get him smacked with a boot again.

“Uh, yes” he said eventually. “Yes, she did.”

“I think it’s time when we went home for dinner, tía” Victoria cut across, deciding it was high time this conversation ended before it was steered down more awkward paths. To her surprise, Rosita nodded.

“Okay then, mija, we’ll leave. I’m guessing I’ll be seeing you later, Anton?” She tipped him an enormous wink.

“Uh…” Anton managed. It was almost amused Victoria, really. She could almost see the smoke coming from his ears as the gears in his brain ground to a halt. It was astounding to see that all it took was a smile and a wink from an overly-friendly woman for him to lose the ability to speak.

“Yes, I’m sure you will, tía” she said, a little more forcefully, this time taking her by the arm and pulling her along after her. She sneaked a quick look back at the detective, who was still standing where they’d left him, his grin now looking downright confused.

She fought the urge to laugh all the way home.

*

The sun was starting to descend. He could almost feel every second go by.

Ernesto de la Cruz sighed as he lay back in his chintz armchair, allowing his chihuahua alebrijes to scamper around his feet as he nursed a glass of whiskey. It had been a long day. Not necessarily a busy one, but long nonetheless. He was just sitting around bored; no performances planned for the week, nor where there any women to chase. Not even an over-eager fan to drive away.

He looked at the four walls surrounding him, all lined with his awards or memorabilia. Some people considered him an attention-seeker and, in a way, he supposed they were right: without a guitar in his hands and an audience in front of him, he found himself at a constant loose end.

One of the chihuahuas yapped as the door to the lounge opened and in strode Javier, removing his mask as he came. Ernesto internally groaned at the mud being trekked all over his gleaming white floors. He understood that the man was only there for a pay check, but some things were just rude.

“Went to the Riveras’ a couple nights ago” he declared, not elaborating. He was a man of few words, but Ernesto was fine with this. As long as the head bodyguard knew his place, he was happy to play his little game and ask the questions. 

“And?”

“Threatened the woman there. Made it clear what would happen if her husband happened to show up.”

“Good” Ernesto smiled, taking a sip from his glass. No, he wasn’t going to offer Javier any.

“But – “

Ernesto paused mid-drink. That was, to be frank, one word he’d rarely heard from the man and something that immediately filled him with worry.

_“But?”_

“There was an issue. She was giving me lip, denying that she knew who he was, so I decided to demonstrate the message on a more practical level.”

Ernesto couldn’t help but smirk. He would have liked to have seen that. Imelda had been a cold-hearted shrew in life. He doubted death had mellowed her out very much.

“Then… _he_ showed up.”

Ernesto at upright. “Héctor?”

“No. The other one.”

Ernesto’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion before settling into a grimace.

“Oh” he growled, “ _him_.”

Javier nodded.

“What the hell does he think he’s doing?” Ernesto snapped, talking more to himself than the other person in the room. “You’d think the message would have sunk in with him by now. Aren’t there enough wandering wives or lost alebrijes for him to track down rather than try and have a go at me all the time?”

He looked at Javier, trying not to stare at his left eye, which was scarred and milky, nor the cracks leading from the side of the mouth up his cheekbone. One of Ernesto’s other bodyguards had made fun of Javier’s features once, saying that it made him look like a pirate.

As far as Ernesto knew, that same man was still in intensive care with half of his ribcage missing.

“Tail him” he decided. “He might be a freak who’ll never be believed, but we cannot chance anyone getting suspicious now. Héctor’s almost forgotten, he said so himself when he tried to see me last month. Just a little while longer and we’ll be in the clear. Got it?”

Javier nodded silently, not even bothering with a goodbye as he slipped the gas mask back on and strode from the room. Ernesto was left once again with his alcohol and alebrijes, his only new companion being a much muddier floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anton's the kind of guy who has a whole host of witty comebacks for when someone insults him (a common, daily occurence) but shuts down the moment someone pays him a compliment or acts friendly towards him.
> 
> For anyone wondering about the mention of Pishtacos: yes, they are semi-relevant to the story later. I appreciate that some readers may not like the story delving slightly into the realm of folklore, but I thought that if a world of walking, talking skeletons exist, why can't those myths perhaps be true?
> 
> If the picture once again fails to work, here's a link to it on Tumblr for anyone interested: 
> 
> https://metherarto.tumblr.com/post/620541807309340672/some-extra-doodles-to-compliment-the-next-chapter


	5. Ceci, Héctor and Gustavo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot happens in this chapter, some of which I hope doesn't feel rushed or forced-in. I spent ages trying to designate parts to certain chapters, but in the end I threw up my hands and decided "you know what? Let's just shove everything in at once."
> 
> The result was just over 6,000 words. 
> 
> WARNING: This chapter has some mentions of murder. Just a heads-up if anyone's a bit upset by that sort of thing.

_The thought of his wife’s disappointed face managed to keep him quiet for ten minutes of the interview. Thoughts of the upcoming baby kept him going for the rest of it, even despite the frankly ridiculous questions he was being asked._

_He stared aimlessly at the face of the chief security officer, who was in turn sizing up his admittedly blank resumé._

_“So, do I have the job?”_

_The half-white sheet of paper fell to the table and the man leaned across, magnifying his slowly-developing wrinkles and frown lines._

_“Here’s the deal” he said in a voice so grizzled it was near-comical. “You patrol the fences, move away paparazzi, occasionally take out the rubbish. Senor de la Cruz does not like to be interrupted unless he asks to be, so just keep it to yourself.”_

_“I’m going to take that as a yes, then. Hooray for me.”_

_He expected a sarcastic sneer or eye-roll; what he got instead was much more out of proportion. The man leaned across the desk and physically grabbed him by the collar, pulling him forward so that they were now nose-to-nose._

_“A word to the wise. I don’t take cheek. Senor de la Cruz is also a great admirer of efficiency and if it means giving you a beating hard enough to ensure the message sinks in, he’ll let it happen. Bear that in mind.”_

And it’s a pleasure to be working with you too, Javier sir, _he so dearly wanted to say. As a general rule, he preferred not to be beaten semi-conscious if he could avoid it. The pauper’s wedding he’d had was proof enough of their dwindling funds, the last thing they could afford was to launch a lawsuit when he lost the ability to walk._

_“Of course” he chose to respond instead._

_“Of course,_ sir _” Javier emphasised._

_He hated it when people did that. Sticking “sir” on the end expectantly, despite not having done anything to earn his respect. His parents had done it, his father using it as an obvious distancing tactic when he declared he was going to spend the rest of his life with a common prostitute. He was unsure if her parents would have been like that too – well, if they hadn’t cut off all communication with their daughter and kicked her to the curb long beforehand._

_“Of course…_ sir.”

_He made it a point to sneak in as much sarcasm as he thought he could get away with._

*

**6 Days until Día de los Muertos**

“Are you alright, mija?”

Victoria looked up from her almost-untouched soup, noticing fatherly concern etched all over Julio’s features. People seemed to be asking her that question a lot, lately.

“Yes, Papa, I’m fine. It was just a rather tiring day, is all.”

“Ah yes, of course. How could we forget?” came a voice from further down, laced with facetiousness. Oscar. Of course it was Oscar. Which meant Felipe would be sure to speak up next.

“The library is indeed a tiring place to be” his brother grinned, proving her right.

“So exhausting.”

“Sitting up there, reading books.”

“Imagine the back-breaking pain.”

“The blood, sweat and tears.”

“The hours of unrelenting –“

Imelda, who had come in from the kitchen with a dish of bread from the family to share, hit Felipe around the back of the head. He almost went face-first into his own bowl, causing Victoria to crack just the faintest glimmer of a smile.

“Quiet” she scolded, “If Victoria has had a busy day, then she’s had a busy day.”

She turned to look at someone else as she sat herself down again.

“May I ask what’s so funny, Rosita? You seem to have come over rather giggly this evening.”

_Oh, God._

“Nothing, Mama Imelda” she smiled. Victoria made the fatal mistake of making eye contact with her aunt for that split second. “Say, mija, do you think your _gentleman friend_ is as worn out as you are?”

The atmosphere shifted right there and then, all heads turning to face her. Victoria immediately felt the urge to hide under the table, or, even better, have the ground open up and swallow her right there and then.

_Great job, tía. Very subtle._

“A _gentleman friend?_ ” Imelda repeated, hand drifting, almost casually, towards her boot. Victoria knew it wasn’t because of her; her grandmother’s own experience with a man had been far from satisfactory and it stood to reason she’d immediately want to hunt Anton down. And if that wasn’t reason enough, their argument in the front of the shop yesterday provided another.

Oscar and Felipe turned to each other, faces growing identical smirks, no doubt mentally communicating and deciding the best ways they could tease her about it. Julio just looked ready to start hyperventilating.

“ _Sí_ , abuelita” she decided to respond simply. “A detective. He was working in the library and I noticed him pass by the section I was reading in a few times. I asked him if he needed any help and he did. So we worked together on one of his cases for the rest of the time.”

She’d rather impressed herself with how well she’d been able to lie. It was probably a good idea to add more and allay any remaining suspicion.

“We got on talking as we left; nothing major. He’s nice enough, but chances are we won’t see each other again.”

Imelda hummed, clearly happy with this explanation. “Well, just be careful. You never know how _he_ feels about your little meeting.”

“What was his case about, mija?” Rosita asked, unwilling to let the pain end.

Victoria sighed and reached for the bread. “Nothing much. It was mainly made up of speculation, really. He was raving on about Pishtacos –“

“The legendary monsters?” asked Oscar.

“Who eat flesh and fat?” Felipe added. Imelda tutted.

“The very same. He was a bit of a lunatic, to be honest.” She imagined Anton’s insulted tone if he’d been there to respond to her comment and she found herself fighting the urge to laugh again. “The most grounded bit of talking we did was about some tabloid-famous serial killer. The Invisible Man, I think he was called.”

A loud clatter echoed from beside her, Mama Imelda had dropped her spoon into her soup, eyes wide. Rosita had let out a little gasp and now Julio _definitely_ seemed to be hyperventilating.

Whatever reaction Victoria had been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been _that_.

“…what?”

“Well, Victoria, you see, uh…” Felipe tried. Imelda grabbed a bread roll and threw it at him.

“Nothing, mija.” Her response was much too quick to be real. “It’s just…well, he was quite notorious around Santa Cecilia at one point _. Isn’t that right?_ ” she asked with more force than necessary, which she only ever did when making sure everyone was going to agree with her,

Sure enough, everyone nodded, the twins’ heads looking ready to come off.

They ate in silence after that and Rosita didn’t bring up the subject again.

*

Before going to sleep, after making sure there wasn’t a violent stranger in their back garden for the second night in a row, Victoria propped herself up with her pillows and scoured through the papers she’d taken from the library with her. She’d been wrong in assuming it was just front-page fodder to trick buyers, some copies had more information on the inside, including a list of names.

Every time there’d been an unexplained murder which resulted in the bodies missing limbs, the victim’s name had been lumped into the same category. With each passing issue, the number of names just grew and grew. She’d spent an hour reading each new addition, no noise reaching her room except for the twins arguing and Imelda threatening to make them sleep on the street if they didn’t shut up.

_Alejandro Montenegro…Gloria Bastago…_

Her eyes felt heavy.

_Pele Chillano…Victoria Rivera…_

One more issue and maybe she’d call it a night. And this time, she’d remembered to get her glass of water beforehand, no longer risking another late-night excursion downstairs.

_Pepe Iglesias…_

_Wait, **what?**_

****

A sensation not unlike having a bucket full of freezing water poured over her hit Victoria. She looked back at the list.

That was definitely her name. And right next to it, the words “ _Santa Cecilia_ ”.

If she was a more imaginative woman, she’d have tried to convince herself it was an unlikely coincidence. But in her heart, she couldn’t believe it. The universe was rarely so careless.

_But my heart just gave out one day when I was out collecting supplies. Exhaustion, Papa told me…everyone said it…_

But she’d been outdoors, surrounded by strangers.

She’d never liked to dwell on her death, even if it was something as simple as heart failure. As if unconsciously blocking it out.

And those had been some strange reactions at dinnertime in response to what should have been a name the family had never heard before.

She let the paper slip from her numb fingers as she flopped backwards.

She’d been murdered. Murdered without realising it. And the whole family had kept it from her.

A mild spark of irritation flashed within her chest. Did they not think she was capable of handling the truth? It certainly would have made things easier to grasp, being taken to one side and talked to calmly rather than seeing her name in an obituary in cold, black print. It was if she couldn’t trust anyone, or at the very least, they didn’t believe they could trust her.

How many limbs had been removed from her corpse? Were they eaten or was the killer interrupted before doing so? Julio had told her it had been an open-casket funeral, but that could easily have been another lie.

Regardless of her repulsion, she let her thoughts unjumble themselves. They were then swarmed by newly-steeled determination, as a memory replayed itself.

_I like you, Victoria. You make me laugh. So, my offer will always stand, if you wish to accept it…_

…would it be too late to take him up on that?

*

**5 Days until Día de los Muertos**

Anton, it transpired, was incredibly hard to find when you were actively seeking him out. After dinner that day, Victoria had left the house under the pretence of fresh air. And for the first time, she felt no regret in lying to her family.

At first, the aim was this: follow the wearer of the first vivacious jacket she saw. It wasn’t a common sight to see fully-grown men in bright-red suits, after all. But one detail she’d forgotten to factor into her plan was the rapidly-approaching Día de los Muertos festival, which was coming up in five days. Naturally, seeing as how it was such a big deal, streamers and colourful bunting were being put everywhere and she was now finding it much more difficult to avoid the mariachis on the street corners.

Even despite what she supposed was a brand-new rebellious streak, old habits died hard.

As look would have it, she bumped into Chichárron, who was cleaning pint glasses on a nearby bench, avoiding the wary gazes of the better-remembered.

“Looking for the jolly red asshat?” he asked gruffly, not even looking up to acknowledge her presence.

“Yes” she replied simply, deciding he wasn’t worth any manners.

“He’ll be around here somewhere. He likes to wander this part of town when he’s bored; tends to scour through the bins or feed the cockroaches. Why do you want him, anyway?”

“I have a case I’d like him to solve. He also gave me the opportunity to join him as his investigative partner a couple of days ago; I’ve decided to take it.”

Chichárron finally looked up, an ugly smirk on his face.

“He’ll be over the moon to hear that” he said, sounding bitter. “He was down in Shantytown again last night, bugging me. Couldn’t go five minutes without your name being dragged into the mix – you’re Victoria, ain’t ya?”

Victoria’s self-consciousness flared up again. Chichárron carried on talking, not noticing.

“Honest to Dios, it was _Victoria_ this and _Victoria_ that. _That lovely woman Victoria says…Victoria was of the opinion that…Did I tell you I met Victoria again?”_ he mimicked in a cruel but rather accurate impersonation. “You’ve got a little something by your shoe there.”

Victoria looked down at the cobblestones, only just stopping herself from jumping back at the sight of a cockroach starting to claw its way up the side of her boot, luminous green and not looking the least bit friendly. She was unsure of what exactly to do – any unexpected physical contact, whether the perpetrator was big or small, made her immediately freeze. Was it an alebrije or a mutant creature from the pages of a comic book?

“Aw, _there’s_ the widdle guy!”

Well, that solved _that_ mystery.

Anton sauntered over and Victoria had to do a double take as Chichárron grimaced and slid further along the bench. Identical cockroaches were crawling up his jacket sleeves, in and out of cuffs and shirt: essentially, anyway they could fit. There weren’t many, maybe eleven or twelve in all, but their size more than made up for their lack of numbers.

Their owner was oblivious to the frosty reception, instead bending down as if Victoria wasn’t even there and guiding the straggler into his hands.

“Now, Stefano, what have I told you about wandering off? Call yourself a spirit guide, honestly, all you ever lead me to are mounds of particularly inviting-looking litter. If you’re bored, you can always play with Pablo; he’s down my left trouser leg somewhere…hold on…”

He dug his free hand down his trousers, pulling out another from a location that looked rather uncomfortable. The two insects circled each other in his palm before nuzzling together, seemingly content and disappearing down his sleeve.

“Ah, Victoria” he said cordially, dusting his hands off. “How can I help you this fine evening?”

All of Victoria’s original thoughts had been blasted from her mind by the spectacle she’d just witnessed.

“Do you…you _named_ a bunch of cockroaches?”

“Excuse you” he said, raising an eyebrow, “ _my_ bunch of cockroaches. A very special bunch, as it were.”

What with Pepita, Victoria had thought she’d seen it all when it came to alebrijes. She’d obviously been mistaken.

“So…you… do you take them with you everywhere you go? In the library, you had those things down your trousers or shirt or goodness knows where else?”

“No, not everywhere. Not always. I let them have a bit of a free reign, you see; it doesn’t do a pet any good to be cooped up at all hours. As long as I have their mother on me, who is more than happy to remain by my side during the day, the rest will follow if I so wish.”

“Meaning you had the mother with you yesterday.”

“I did, yes. Would you like to see her?”

Her morbid curiosity was once again getting the better of her. Dios, had she not learnt _anything?_

“Yes, please.”

Anton unbuttoned his waistcoat; Victoria put a hand over her eyes, more out of decency’s sake that anything else, as he dug a hand into his ribcage. When he told her she could remove it, the smile evident in his voice, she wished she’d ignored him. This time, she actually _did_ jump back and was so startled that she failed to even feel annoyed at herself for doing so.

The mama roach had clearly followed the Pepita-route when it came to becoming an alebrije, having grown exponentially to an unrealistic proportion. In this case, its back and front were too large for Anton’s hand and instead curled around it. It retained the same neon colour as the others, with the added bonus of bright slime dripping from its mandibles.

Chichárron through up his hands. “That’s it. I’m out. Have fun” he said simply, and stormed off. Victoria briefly watched him leave, silently begging for him to take her too.

“What do you call her?” she asked hesitantly, forcing herself to be polite. She’d asked to see it, after all.

“Ingrid” he answered happily, stroking the thing like a puppy. A thin layer of slime latched itself between the cockroach’s back and his glove and Victoria decided it was high time she changed the subject before the contents of her non-existent stomach came back up.

“I’ve thought about the offer you made me a few nights ago” she began, ignoring the way Ingrid’s many legs moved as she wriggled her way back into Anton’s in-built hidey-hole. “I’ve decided to accept, on one condition.”

“Yes?”

“We find out who the Invisible Man was.”

“…I must admit, that wasn’t a response I was expecting. May I peruse the reason?”

“No, you may not.”

“But you know what? I’m going to ignore that statement and peruse it anyway. A sudden interest in a seemingly random topic usually means you’ve been, or believe to have been, affected by it in some way. A family member carved up and served, or…?”

His voice trailed off.

“No. _You_ being carved up and served.”

“I don’t want to picture myself being cannibalised, thank you” she snapped.

“And how exactly did you work it out?”

She swallowed thickly. “My name was listed in the column of victims’, as well as my hometown, where I died. I daresay it’s a little too perfect to be a coincidence.”

“A valid hypothesis, yes, but I fail to see how you were butchered in the street like a sheep carcass and failed to realise it was happening.”

“It was quick and sudden. My family said it was heart failure. So either they never found out the truth because they didn’t read the newspaper that week –“ even as the words left her mouth, she knew how far-fetched they were, “- or my grandmother and parents lied to me.”

“Great family you’ve got there.”

“One more remark like that and I won’t hesitate to knock you silly with my boot.”

“Oh, right, yes. I’m supposed to be empathetic around this point, aren’t I? Well Victoria, I’m very sorry for the pain your murder and subsequent –“

“I don’t care about your fake apologies, Anton. What I want to know is whether or not we have a deal.”

Anton’s smile grew so wide Victoria was worried that he was about to eat his own face.

“Yes, Victoria. We have a deal.”

*

“When you said a studio, I expected something a lot more high-end.”

“Well, this is the fire escape. I’m sure the main entrance is a lot nicer to look at, but I’m not able to enter that way anymore.”

Victoria sighed exasperatedly. “Banned?”  
  


“Banned.”

“Do I _want_ to know the reason why?”

“That depends. Do you want to know why I had to set a mountain of sugar skulls on fire?”

Victoria’s silence was all the answer required.

Anton outstretched a hand towards the ladder, which had been pulled up to the first-floor window. For a bizarre moment, she expected him to pull off some form of undisclosed magical power and summon it to them. But instead, one of his cockroaches crawled out from his breast pocket and up his arm, flying upwards a few feet and settling on the sill.

The thing jumped around a bit, flashing its wings as if having a seizure, clearly wanting to distract someone on the other side of the glass. Sure enough, the window was eventually flung open to the accompaniment of an irritated grumble as a bushy-haired, angry-looking woman stuck her head out.

“What do you want, Anton?” she snapped, picking up the roach and flicking back at him using her thumb and forefinger.

“This is what I love about you, Ceci. You’re always so _cheerful_ all the time. I need to see Héctor, please.”

“What makes you think he’s here?” Ceci huffed.

“Oh, please. It’s five days until Día de los Muertos. Where would he be if not here, working on yet another inevitably doomed attempt to cross the Marigold Bridge?”

Ceci just rolled her eyes, hitting the mechanism to drop the ladder. Anton’s roach scooted out the way just in time, snaking up his trouser leg as the thing hit the cobblestones with a resounding _bang_.

“Good girl, Ofelia” he said, patting his leg affectionately before climbing up.

Victoria clambered through the window after him, surrounded suddenly on all sides by mannequins. No lights were on in the area despite the growing darkness, Ceci threading a dress whilst muttering darkly to herself.

“…and if I’m not giving out free costumes to some idiot who never returns what he borrows, I’m allowing someone who’s _banned from this space to waltz on in_ …I may as well be harbouring fugitives…”

“Busy night, Ceci?”

Ceci whirled around, pointing a needle at his chin.

“Sit down” she commanded, eyes narrowed as she pointed at a flimsy wooden chair in the corner. “I’m not letting you wander off anywhere after last time.”

Anton shrugged. “Alright. But I maintain the notion that the burning of those sugar skulls was imperative for me solving that case.”  
  


“Which is bad enough, but then of course you have to do it right next to a rack of _flammable dresses and a stockpile of fireworks_! The blaze took three hours to get under control, Anton!”

“But look on the bright side: no more fly infestation.”

Ceci growled at him, spinning on her heel and stabbing the dress again, clearly wishing it was the man’s throat.

“Hey Ceci, where did you say you kept the plastic spoons again?”

The head of young man poked its way around the doorframe; it was yellowed, with a goatee. Despite this, they seemed to have lost none of their evidently vibrant personality, smiling happily like a child promised an extra sweet just for being in the room. But it wasn’t like Anton’s smiles, which seemed to penetrate your very soul. This one had an almost paternal friendliness to it, despite his physical age.

Ceci drew a long sigh through her nose and put her head in her hands.

“Héctor, it…it doesn’t matter. Leave the coffee, I didn’t want any, not really. Just get in here, Anton wants to see you.”

“ _Anton!”_ Héctor cried, tripping over his own feet whilst making his way over to the detective. He was the first person Victoria had run into who didn’t treat the man with immediate dislike, which was in and of itself an enormous surprise. “How are you, amigo? How’s the case been going?”

Anton prised himself from the bear hug he’d been forced into, the discomfort evident in his eyes.

“It’s coming along swimmingly, Héctor”, the smoothness never having left his voice. “However, there’s a little something I believe you might have that would help speed proceedings along a little.”

“Wha -?” Héctor managed, before a clattering sound echoed across the wooden floor and one of the cockroaches appeared, trailing a set of keys along behind it. “Hey! Anton, I need those! If my first plan doesn’t work, I’ll need those to-”

“And you shall have them, Héctor. We just need to borrow them for tonight.”

“We?” Héctor repeated, clocking the use of the collective noun. Victoria felt the need to introduce herself.

“Hello” she said crisply. Héctor yelped and jumped back nearly three feet.

Victoria stared.

“How did she do that?” he gasped.

“She’s my investigatory partner and criminal-scaring utility. If you think her dwelling in the shadows is scary, just wait until she glares at you.”

Victoria opened her mouth to snap indignantly, but then Ceci spoke up. “I quite like it. At least someone’s around to keep you in line and I’m glad I’m not the only childminder for once.”

“ _Hey!”_ both Anton and Héctor protested at the same time. Victoria had to laugh as Ceci gave her a flat look which couldn’t communicate any message other than “ _men_ ”.

“Anyway, I’m afraid we must be going” Anton said abruptly, pushing Héctor aside as he strolled back towards the window. “It’s been lovely, Ceci, and by that I mean it was the most insufferable three minutes of my afterlife.”

“It’s called relaxation, Anton. It won’t kill you a second time.”

“Idleness is the enemy of top-notch time-keeping.”

“I think I read that on the back of a cereal box once” Héctor commented, scratching his goatee.

“Understandable” Anton nodded. “That’s where I get all my wisdom from. Now then, Victoria, how about we - Victoria?”  
  


Victoria was only half-listening, focused on the door leading out of the seamstress’ studio and into the larger design space. “What’s through there?”

Ceci finished up the last of her stitching with a flourish. “Oh, that’s the design area. It’s the biggest space we have; it’s used for prop design and band rehearsals.”

“It’s also in no way relevant or interesting.” Anton of course felt the urge to add. “So naturally we can get back on track as I’m sure you wouldn’t be interested in this year’s new displays of artistic mediocrity.”

She glared at him.

“See?” he said simply, splaying his arms with a cursory glance towards Héctor.

“Yeesh” Héctor agreed.

Ignoring them, she pushed the door aside and slowly strolled into the area, hoping not to disturb anybody. It looked fairly abandoned other than a bored-looking janitor and the echoing sounds of…

… _music?_

Her mind drifted almost automatically to defence mode before she realised that she had no real right to be offended. It was their neck of the woods after all, she was the one who’d walked in uninvited. Rather than back away, she decided to let it lead her onwards towards the slightly misted full-wall windows at the far end.

Just around the corner was a contingent of about five or six musicians; the one at the front had a particularly pungent air of self-superiority about him. And after spending time with Anton, that was definitely saying something. A pork pie hat, flourishing neck beard and overly-shined shoes simply screamed that he was a man who was desperately trying to prove something.

“Oh, hello there, _senorita_ ” he grinned, waggling his eyebrows suggestively, “what’s a good-looking young woman like yourself doing in a place like this?”

_Urgh._

“Nothing” she responded icily, making sure to fix him with her sternest gaze yet. Seriously, had that line _ever_ worked? “I’m just having a walk around. Please continue with…whatever it was you were doing.”

“ _Whatever it was?”_ the man repeated, lowering his violin as the other members of the orchestra either chuckled or snorted pompously. His tone was cordial, but the way his grin turned leery told her she’d regret her choice of words. “ _Senorita_ , this is our piece for the Sunlight Spectacular in three days. Could you at least _try_ and give a compliment?”

The orchestra’s other members chuckled sycophantically.

_Could **you** at least try to keep your cliché, heavy-handed advances to yourself?_

“Here’s one, Gustavo. You can certainly recognise the motif. To be clear, the motif _was_ a chipmunk being flattened by a demolition ball, yes?”

Gustavo yelped indignantly as a gloved hand placed itself on his shoulder; Anton had followed them out. Héctor was a standing a further distance away from them, as if not wanting to be seen.

“Anton!” he said, shuddering slightly as he relinquished himself from the unexpected grip. Victoria allowed herself to smirk at how flustered he was. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be fighting loan sharks in a back alley somewhere?”

“You missed the news, Gustavo, that was last week” Anton replied without missing a beat. “Don’t worry, this isn’t a courtesy call. My associate Victoria here grew rather interested in the studio and unfortunately happened to wander into your disgusting little contingent whilst exploring.”

Gustavo smirked. “And she seemed such a smart woman, too.”

“ _She_ has a name” Victoria snapped.

“ _Ooh_ ” one of the members of the orchestra giggled sarcastically.

“Of course!” came the oily response from the violinist. “I apologise for offending your delicate sensibilities with a little bit of fun, _Vicky_. Where’s Chorizo, by the way? If only we had him here too; this would be a nice little get-together.”

Out the corner of her eye, she noticed Héctor back further into the shadows with a saddened look on his face. It couldn’t a coincidence. She turned to look Anton deep in what remained of his eyes and he nodded, getting the message.

“You can hit him if you want. I won’t tell anyone.”

Gustavo gave a fake gasp, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I give up! Don’t let the lady strike me!”

Victoria was all too ready to wipe the grin away with a well-aimed pound of leather to the face, but the next words caught her off guard.

“How’s your job as the guy’s attack dog, anyway? Has he not remembered how to do it himself?”

Victoria narrowed her eyes, half-leaning down, grip tightening by her leg. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gustavo suddenly looked deliriously happy. “What, he never told you what he was like when he first died?”

The rest of the orchestra laughed, shaking their heads and whispering to each other, apparently having heard this story before. Anton didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move.

“So, he first shows up at the studio, right? Wandering around aimlessly, constant dazed look on his face. Ceci goes out to see if he’s alright, probably assuming he’s on something, and you know what the first thing he says to her is? _Are you my wife?”_

He wheezed out a laugh and the orchestra predictably followed suit.

“Every woman he came into contact with, he asked them that question. At first it was funny, then it got sad. But then it got funny again. My guess? The woman left him in life, knocking him out for good measure. Except the hit addled his brains and he died of a haemorrhage or something.”

Victoria felt horrified for Anton. Even if she didn’t necessarily like him, this was most likely extremely personal information the loudmouth _músico_ was throwing away like it was nobody’s business.

“Or maybe you killed her after you went mad from looking at her so long. I mean, falling for you? She must have had real low standards, or been really ugly. Let me guess, single, with a child? I heard that was pretty common in those days.”

She was by this point fully prepared to beat him senseless with her boot. Not wasting any more time, she was stopped mid-removal only by a single raised hand from Anton himself.

“I say, Gustavo” he murmured slowly. Victoria felt herself shiver slightly. Hidden under the usual pomp, his words were like ice. The chasms seemed deeper and darker than before. But she felt like she was the only one to notice. “I didn’t realise I was so fascinating. You seem to have done quite a bit of theorising about me.”

Gustavo shrugged, evidently assuming his work was done. “Eh, what can I say? The folk down at Shantytown are real big gossips. None of them seem to like you that much, either.”

The temperature of the room suddenly seemed to drop a few degrees. The ensuing silence was punctuated by the squeaking of leather as Anton’s gloves tightened into fists. Victoria unconsciously took a step back and she noticed Héctor hide himself slightly behind a stage curtain.

“If you know so much about me, then you’ll know about the tales some of the folk in Shantytown have made up. Some of the things I’ve been rumoured to have done in life in order to stay so well-remembered.”

He spoke as calmly as ever, but something in his voice told Victoria that the line had been crossed.

“Yeah. So?” Gustavo said, smirk failing him.

Anton bent forwards and for the violinist, the world seemed to shrink into a very small corner. No-one in the orchestra was smiling now.

“So the rumours are nothing compared to the truth, Gustavo dearest. And the truth is _nothing_ compared to what I’m going to do to you if you insult my wife again. Am I clear?”

Gustavo gulped. “Yeah…yes, I mean, uh – yes.”

Anton perked back up as fast as a finger snap. “Good” he said cheerily. “Victoria?”

Victoria gladly took the invitation this time. Flinging Gustavo and his group a suitably filthy glare, she followed him back into the sewing room and to the window, the detective not even stopping to say goodbye to Héctor or Ceci.

Someone grabbed her shoulder and she turned to see the seamstress, a new and unexpected look of concern on her face.

“What happened?” she asked, sounding worried all of a sudden.

Victoria frowned and was immediately cut across.

“And don’t say “ _nothing”_. When you’ve known Anton as long as I have, you can tell when something’s up.”

It made sense, Victoria supposed. If the facial expression never changed, you’d be forced to recognise emotion in the more subtle ways.

“Gustavo” she explained. “Talked out loud about some really personal stuff of his.”

The name alone was enough of a trigger for Ceci to pinch her brow and sigh annoyedly. “That _cabrón_. I’ll speak to him, don’t worry. Whether he’ll listen though, that’s…another story.”

The two of them stood there in a silence of mutual sympathy.

“Just… _ay Dios_ , when did life suddenly become so complicated?” she added, speaking for the both of them. She fiddled with her glasses and Victoria caught herself staring. They were nice glasses, bold but not brash. They’d never suit Victoria, but they complimented the other woman’s face perfectly.

Realising she was staring, she snapped out of it as she was handed a small slip of paper.

“A telephone number for the studio” Ceci explained. “Ring me if there’s any problems with Anton.”

“What am I, his babysitter?” Victoria huffed.

Ceci shrugged. “Let’s be honest, it’s not far from the truth, _sí_?”

She had her there, she had to admit. “… _sí_.”

“He likes you, you know. Anton.”

“In what way?” Victoria hesitantly asked. She’d always been guarded when something vaguely hinting at romance was involved, she’d never made clear her preferences in life and didn’t plan on starting now, either.

Ceci’s shrug did nothing to alleviate her concern.

“Who knows? But he’s introduced you with fairly respectable terms and not insulted you once in the last fifteen minutes. When it comes to him, that’s basically proposing marriage.”

“I sincerely hope not.”

Ceci chuckled. It was a pretty chuckle.

_Dammit Victoria, get a grip!_

“I think you should hurry up after him” she said, nodding towards the window. “He’s making quite a bit of headway; his strop must be spurring him on.”

Victoria pocketed the slip of paper in her apron, giving a slight smile and suddenly feeling rather shy before heading back to the emergency stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, it cuts off rather abruptly, this one. I think if I don't end it at some point, this one segment will be going on forever. I was a bit annoyed at myself, believing that I didn't explore Victoria's thoughts enough when reaching a conclusion about her death (I mean, something so drastic hidden from you for years probably results in more intense emotion, but I was never good at writing that), but I hope it still delivered. 
> 
> But I digress. Things get a lot more detective-y and (slightly illegal) next chapter, don't you worry. 
> 
> COMMENTS AND CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM ALWAYS WELCOME!


	6. Secrets of a Successful Heist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided I might start editing in "_ days until Dia de los Muertos" at the start of each chapter so it will be easier to understand the timescale during this story. I know understanding how many days or nights have passed can be hard when the chapters are updated infrequently and can be few and far between and the whole story hangs around Dia de los Muertos towards the end. 
> 
> I was glad to see so many comments from people who have enjoyed the last chapter. I was worried that Anton would too big an asshole for people to like, but I'm happy that a lot of people who left comments enjoy his presence - I was hoping to make him one, yes, but a funny one as well.

_It was about six days into the job when he found something he wasn’t supposed to. This also happened to mark the point when the memories started getting foggy._

_In retrospect, a bottle of rat poison and a small book were rather conspicuous objects to just be left lying around with the door hanging open. At the time he simply thought that maybe his new boss was just used to hiring blind people as security. His curiosity got the better of him, as it always did. What a shame that Javier passed by the room just as he started flicking through it and saw a stranger’s name written in the back cover._

_He’d learned on day one not to cross Javier, after a few of his clearly-terrified colleagues told him of the man’s dealings with the criminal underworld: extortion, racketeering, illegal fighting tournaments and all that malarkey._

_But then again, he’d never been known for making great life choices._

_He’d asked who the stranger was, that was one thing he knew he’d done for certain. When Javier failed to give any answer other than a shrug and a wry smirk, he’d inquired further along the lines of why the stranger’s book happened to be in Senor de la Cruz’s possession, filled to the brim with his most famous songs._

_That was probably the tipping point for Javier. Looking back, it wasn’t really the best idea to interrogate his boss’ second-in-command, especially when that second-in-command was rumoured to beat a man to death every alternate weekend. Once again, he’d demonstrated his perfect inability to keep his mouth shut._

_There in the room, Javier had snarled at him to get back to work, the man very unsubtly massaging his knuckles as he did so. The thought of the book stayed in his mind for the rest of the day and all the way back home. It happened to dissipate however, when he stumbled onto the sight of the building he happened to live in trapped in a raging inferno, flames piling from every window and all its tenants standing outside to watch their livelihoods burn to the ground._

_That was to say, all the tenants other than his wife._

_And whilst the memory was foggy from that point on, he was fairly certain he briefly caught sight of Javier standing at the scene, a bit further away from everyone else._

_Still smiling that wry smirk._

**5 Days Until Dia de los Muertos**

“So where are we going?”

“Ernesto de la Cruz’s mansion. We’re going to break in, don’t you remember?”

“…I’ll be honest, no, not really. I thought you said you were just stealing a few files.”

“Which are in his mansion.”

Victoria desperately searched for an excuse.

“ _Tonight?_ You’re doing it _tonight_?”

“Why not? There’s no time like the present, after all.”

She briefly considered withdrawing herself from their deal. Chances were it wouldn’t be the first time she’d be doing it.

“So now it’s not only _thievery_ , but _breaking and entering_ as well?”

“No, of course not. What do you think we went to the studio for? The fun of it?” One of his cockroaches poked out of his sleeve, depositing the key it had taken from Héctor into his hand. “This little item here is all we need for a successful heist.”

“But we’re still uninvited, with no permission to be on his property. It is, technically, still breaking and entering.”

“You’re remarkably quick on the uptake.”

She gave the back of his head a stony look. 

“Please understand that if you’re glaring at me, as I’ve noticed you usually do when things go silent, I’m not sure why. I was trying to calm you down using factually incorrect statements. It’s what friends supposedly do, remember?”

She’d brought that on herself, she supposed.

“Despite your misguided attempts to put me at ease, you’re still committing a crime here, Anton” she growled.

“ _We’re_ committing a crime” he corrected her in that infuriatingly casual way. “Partnership, remember?”

“Oh, no” she snapped, trying to ignore the fluttering of panic, “ _No_. You may be able to just disappear all of a sudden the moment things go south, but I can’t. If I’m caught committing a crime, everything my family worked for, the shoes – everything will be ruined. The family name tarnished.”

She didn’t dare imagine the disappointed look on her father and grandmother’s face if she was ever escorted to the door by police and publicly mocked for trying to steal from a worldwide celebrity. A celebrity _músico_ , no less.

“Oh, get your head out of your family’s backsides. They’ll be none the wiser. Besides, Héctor will be needing this returned soon and I’d rather not let him down this year.”

Victoria arched an eyebrow. “And why not?”

“Didn’t you notice the discolouration of his bones? I’d say he’s got just a few weeks left, tops.”

She suddenly felt horrible. “And you can’t…?”

“Whilst I may be a detective with unparalleled investigatory skills, I’m not an immaculate deity. There’s nothing I can do for him, except maybe return this key as quickly as possible so he can get back to his scheming.”

“To cross the Marigold Bridge?”

“No, to rob a bank. _Yes_ , to cross the Marigold Bridge, what else?”

She didn’t appreciate his condescending remark, but had little time to snap back at him as he suddenly shoved his bow tie into her hands.

“Hold this” he declared, undoing the top buttons of his dress shirt and opening his jacket and waistcoat.

“What on earth are you doing?” she demanded, slightly worried. She wouldn’t put it past him to just strip off in the middle of an empty street at eleven o’clock at night.

“It’s a disguise.”

“You’ve just made yourself look a bit messier!”

“Well, in the unlikely event we’re caught in the act, they’ll be looking for a messy man, won’t they? Not the impeccably-dressed gentleman I usually tend to be.”

Oh, how hard it was for her not to roll her eyes.

“The bright red might help them see through your cunning ruse.”

“You’re rather overestimating the intelligence of hired muscle, my dear.”

“And stop it with the “my dear” stuff. I’m at _least_ fifteen years older than you.”

*

All Victoria knew about the Plaza del Cruz was that it was smack bang in the centre of the Arts District, a hive for all the wannabe musical stars to congregate. The luxurious five-storey home of the man himself was viewable from all angles, lit up with spotlights that magnified the brightness of the white paint.

All the budget seemed to have been spent on the front of the building, as, approaching from the rear, little could be seen except the odd light turned on near a balcony. The rest was just a nebulous black mass which towered over them and made Victoria further regret her choices.

“Okay” Anton said, removing his jacket and dumping it unceremoniously on the ground without looking at where it would fall. No wonder the thing was so filthy. “This is the part where we hop the fence. You coming?”

And without waiting for an answer, he ran at the rickety barrier and cleared it in a single leap. There was a split-second silence, followed by a sharp crunching sound and another muffled “ _ouch_ ”.

Steeling her reserve, she removed her work apron and hoisted up her dress before climbing over in a more dignified fashion. Anton was standing by, examining the now-cracked lenses on his glasses.

“Shame. I really liked those” he said quietly. He looked up to see her lifting herself over and his grin widened. “See, now you’re getting into the spirit of things. Need any help?”

She shrugged off his offered hand, landing firmly on her feet. Despite what she was doing, she couldn’t help but flash him a vaguely smug smile.

“No need to be like that” he said begrudgingly, flexing his fingers and heading towards the double doors at the other end of the garden. The path along the middle of the giant lawn was lit up by small solar lights and there was a lightly-trickling fountain in the middle. Both of them broke into a steady jog, the seriousness of the situation finally settling in for Victoria.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate. There was no going back now, not really. She was in private property and she couldn’t let herself by caught. Reaching the double doors, she pressed her back against the wall to make sure no-one could see her if they happened to look out of a window.

Then she noticed Anton wasn’t with her.

Her head nearly swivelled off of her neck as she rapidly searched left and right, panicking. His black shirt was much harder to see in the darkness, she had to give him that, but it didn’t make her job any easier.

_“Anton!”_ she hissed, laying eyes on him at last. He was by a small, cream-painted structure a few metres away, fiddling with the lock. _“What are you doing?”_

The lock came loose and he swung the door open.

“Going into the garage, what does it look like I’m doing?”

“But – “

_“Hey! You!”_

Both of them turned to see a heavyset skeleton in a black suit and sunglasses storm up, flashing a torch at them.

“This is private property!” he snarled. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

Victoria opened her mouth to speak several times, but repeatedly ended up closing it. It didn’t matter if she wasn’t in possession of a physical stomach, the urge to throw up was too strong.

“Oh, well, we’re gardeners” Anton responded calmly, his voice muffled as he walked into the garage like nothing had gone wrong.

Victoria just put her head in her hands.

“Gardeners” the bodyguard repeated disbelievingly. “And what gardeners show up at half eleven at night?”

“Enthusiastic ones.”

“ _Don’t you move_ ” the guard barked, beaming the light directly into Victoria’s eyes despite her not doing anything. She couldn’t help but feel somewhat irritated by his macho, overly-threatening manner. A scraping noise caught both of their attention as Anton backed out of the shed, dragging something along in front of him. “You’re both coming with me.”

He stormed towards Anton and reached for his collar.

Big mistake.

With only inches to spare before being grabbed, Anton whirled around, a folded solid oak lawn chair in his hands. The chair crashed against the bouncer’s head, slightly splintering upon impact and causing Victoria to jump.

The man flew backwards off of his feet, hurtling a good distance before landing face-down in the gravel. He groaned, but didn’t get back up.

“There we go.” Anton said casually, letting the chair drop. He turned to face Victoria. “You’re glaring again. Is there anything I’ve yet done that _doesn’t_ annoy you, or do you just like to look unhappy for fun?”

“How about a little warning before you attack someone next time?”

Anton’s head tilted.

“If I’d announced out loud that I was about to hit him with a chair, Victoria, I think he may have been rather inclined to duck.”

She just continued glaring, so he simply shrugged his shoulders and headed towards her, still dragging the chair along.

“I’ll unlock this, thank you” she whispered, not wanting him to make yet more noise whilst they were going through the back. “Keys?”

His brow furrowed in confusion for a moment, before realisation dawned and he shook his head.

“Oh no, those keys were for the garage.”

She blinked.

“ _Then just how do you expect us to get in, Anton?_ ”

“Simple” he surmised. And before she could even think of stopping him, he raised the chair again and swung like it was a rounders bat, whacking the doors by the handles. The flimsy decorative things burst open easily. Chances were de la Cruz had believed an intruder wouldn’t have gotten past his security, not bothering to tighten his protection anywhere else.

Victoria tutted to herself. _What a lazy man._

She followed him through the doors into a spacious cloak room as he clicked his fingers.

“I’ve got it.” The room after that was a giant kitchen, most likely for party preparations, full of nothing but metal benches and ovens. “We should establish a code.”

The hanging ladles, spatulas and other cutlery glinted in the moonlight as they creeped along.

“And just how would that work?”

“A snappy phrase, perhaps. For instance, _Gustavo is a fish.”_

She only just held back a snort of laughter. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care, continuing to speak.

“I’m a smooth talker, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. The unfortunate fellow outside would have come up behind me, upon which I would said _by the way, Gustavo is a fish._ Then, whilst he was temporarily confused, I would have hit him with the chair.”

Victoria just shook her head, smirking as they came to another door, leading onto a hallway with a ridiculously long rug lining it. They checked both ways for incoming guards before heading towards the stairwell.

“I’m going to ignore the ridiculous ideas you like to have from now on.”

“Fair enough. You’re missing out, though.”

They reached the top of the stairs, Victoria taking the time to look at the golden banisters with intense dislike. _What a waste of money._

“This is where we momentarily part ways” Anton declared. “You stay here and keep watch; come find me if someone uncovers or blocks our escape route. I’m going to head up to the study and get the files.”

Victoria nodded, partially glad that she wasn’t expected to do anything more, turning around to observe the pitch-black hallway.

*

De la Cruz’s study, from what Anton could tell via his intense spying sessions, was facing the front of the mansion so as to give an eagle-eyed view of the egregious statue in the square. The window spanning the entire wall was a dead giveaway, making the man perfectly visible to the ever-speculating press and fawning media whenever he was at his desk.

In a way, this was perfect for Anton’s means. At least he was certain he was breaking into the correct room this way.

He briefly considered smashing in his second door of the night, but the voice of reason argued that he was probably pushing his luck this way, what with now being so deep into the mansion. Said voice had also decided to sound like Victoria, which was an odd decision for his psyche to make, but it suited him just fine. The only downside was that it had to fight with all the other ones for space.

He tried the handle. It was locked.

Crafty buggers. They had no sense of fair play; they hadn’t even warned the thief in advance. Looked like he’d be doing things the old-fashioned way.

His thoughts wandered back to his new partner as he worked. Stern type, not a barrel of laughs. Pretty, in an owlish sort of way. Also a shoemaker with a pathological but unexplainable hatred of all things musical.

He’d noticed whenever the slightest resemblance of a tune popped up, be it a tapping of a toe or a few notes from Gustavo’s pathetic excuse for an orchestra. She’d flinch or stiffen; most likely not even aware she was doing it.

Anton had noticed every time. He knew people looked at him like he constantly had his head in the clouds, but he had an eye for these sorts of subtle signs. If suspects thought you weren’t paying attention, they’d become more relaxed. If they became more relaxed, they’d make more mistakes.

The lock gave way and he slowly pushed the door open, hoping the floor boards wouldn’t creak too loudly as he entered. The room was lined with memorabilia and rewards, de la Cruz’s stupid smile beaming at him from every angle.

“Stop smiling” he told a particularly garish record cover, but unfortunately it didn’t listen. Oh, well.

The desk in front of him was topped with a few forms, a pencil pot and a typewriter. Anton knew that people who’d died before the invention of computers preferred to keep it old-school, but why a millionaire guitarist couldn’t invest in an IT guy was beyond his understanding.

All the desk’s drawers were empty, save for one at the very bottom. Inside was a simple red notebook, tattered, frayed and strangely familiar.

Interesting for a materialistic man like De la Cruz to keep such a dog-eared thing with him all this time. Flicking through the first few pages he recognised a few lyrics from the man’s most famous songs, most likely drafts judging by the constant scribbling-out of the odd word. But a cursory glance at one of the documents atop the desk (a record deal set at an extortionately high amount) consisted of handwriting that varied in practically every way.

Whilst the deal was signed with the bold cursive of a man who was used to giving far too many autographs, the notebook was sloppy and disjointed, with much less love and care put into it. And in the back cover was a name that someone had obviously attempted to rub out. There were multiple guesses as to why De la Cruz would vandalise his own notebook like this, but one was thing was for certain: that name, whatever it was, certainly didn’t start with the letter “e”.

He slipped the book into his breast pocket, saving it for later inspection.

_“Hey!”_ A sharp voice much too loud for indoor use roused him from his thoughts. Was this every bodyguard’s new catchphrase or something? Fighting back the pang of irritation, he turned to see another one looking at him accusingly.

The man’s face split into a visceral grin that could have rivalled his own. “Thief, huh? Guess it’s a good thing, in a way. I needed the exercise.”

He cracked his knuckles. Had he been in possession of any eyes, Anton probably would have freed his inner Victoria and rolled them. Instead, he settled on putting his hands behind his back and gripping the chair in front of the desk.

“Gustavo is a fish” he said simply.

The bodyguard’s smile slid from his face like melted butter and he opened his mouth to say something.

*

Now that things had settled slightly, Victoria wasn’t sure whether she liked or disliked guard duty. It was the safer option for certain; hiding in one area carried less of a risk that wandering directly into a guard’s patrol route. But once again, it was clearly the task for the least competent.

_Stand and stare at a doorway. Real mentally taxing stuff._

Trying not to look like a petulant child, she straightened herself up as she stood there in the shadows, jittering at the slightest noise.

A glint of something caught her eye. An eerie sort of green light, emanating from behind a set of double doors at the far end of the corridor. Giving the bottom of the stairs one last cursory glance, she quickly but quietly ran up to them, putting an ear to the edge of one to make sure no-one was on the other side, she slowly pushed them open just far enough to squeeze through, finding herself standing by the edge of a highly-detailed pool.

Along the wall above her head was a balcony, which interconnected with another with a pair of stone steps that led deeper into the mansion. The water of the pool was still, almost unnaturally so, as if it hadn’t been disturbed by anything other than cleaning chemicals for decades. The tiles at the bottom were needlessly ornate, a mosaic lining the bottom of flowing skulls and mermaids, but any artistic beauty it may have had was ruined by the bright neon lighting around the room which threw sharp blades of deep blue and lime green all over, lighting the cavernous and rather bare ceiling above.

_“…_ of course, the Sunlight Spectacular is going ahead…” The deep tones of a male echoed from directly above. She hadn’t realised she’d walked so far forward, until she found herself quickly moving back under the cover of the balcony. She could only catch certain words as it was joined by another man’s, this time much scratchier and more worn.

“Sure, sure. You want me on lookout again?”

They grew clearer as she slowly shuffled in the opposite direction Anton had taken, straining to hear as best she could.

“Yes. Héctor hasn’t made his monthly appearance yet, so it’ll only be a matter of time until he shows his face, stinking the place up as usual.”

Victoria frowned. _Héctor? Not the same one from the studio, surely?_

“What’ll it be this year, then? Broken leg? Cracked tibia?”

“I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

“The lads’ll be happy about that.”

“What can I say? It’s Dia de los Muertos soon. I’m just a charitable soul.”

“We’d better make this one the best, mind. The sod’s pretty close to fading, from what I could tell the last time I saw him.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. All yellowed.”

Victoria felt her fist clench. What really were the probabilities of there being two Héctors in the nearby district, both weathered-looking and likely to be forgotten?

“And Imelda?”

“Still none the wiser. Dunno why you’re expecting something to change. Why, you want me to pay the ol’ Rivera household another visit?”

Every sentence was like a weight being placed on Victoria’s chest. _Imelda Rivera._ There was no way they could be referring to somebody else. But what was the connection?

“That may be for the best, yes. Don’t forget your crowbar, of course. And maybe just get right into the beating this time.”

“So long as you’re signing my pay check, I’ll go in a tutu for all I care. Anyway, I’m gonna go get a drink first.”

She slowly began to double back, keeping her eyes in the back of her head as she heard the two men begin to walk down what she assumed to be the stone steps, if the speed of their footfalls were anything to go by. From what she could make out, this man with the gravelly voice had been the same person in the garden three nights ago. He’d mistaken her for her grandmother, but the motive for his intrusion still remained unclear. Why did her family need to be threatened by the employee of Mexico’s most famous guitarist?

Maybe Héctor was linked in some way…but no, she’d never heard anyone in the family mention his name, neither in life nor death.

She was almost back at her makeshift watchpoint when the door to Ernesto’s study flung open with incredible force, a shocked cry accompanying the bodyguard who flew through it, one intact arm clutching his skull as he slid along the polished marble tiles.

Standing over him was Anton, holding yet another chair and his grin looking particularly menacing in the darkness. 

“Good news, Victoria. I think the code works.”

_“I told you I heard something!”_ the guttural voice snarled, sounding more like a roar than a shout. _“You lot, this way **now**!” _The sounds of multiple footsteps pounded the floor above them, drawing closer to the stairwell.

“I hope you got what you wanted” Victoria breathed, reaching for his arm, “because I don’t think we’re going to have much more of a chance to look around.”  
  


She grabbed him and dragged him along, aware of the footsteps getting louder. Dashing back along the corridor, returning to the stairway and hurtling down the steps two at a time, she ignored his undignified cries as he stumbled over his own feet, focused on dragging him behind her no matter the cost.

Upon entering the kitchen her metaphorical heart stopped in her chest as the imposing figure of the bodyguard from the garden stepped into view, suit askew and teeth bared.

Building up the strength as she ran, Victoria hoisted up her dress and let loose a kick as she leaped at him. It landed a bit lower than she’d anticipated, hitting his shin instead of his nether regions, but it had the desired impact. He bent forward, howling and she followed it up by elbowing him in the back of the head before shoving her way past, hand still tight around Anton’s arm.

The back garden was bathed in sudden, blinding white as searchlights flared up one by one, illuminating them as they continued to run. The troop that had been chasing them down the stairs filed out behind them; lead by a silver-haired man with a particularly ugly scar.

“I swear I’ve seen that fellow somewhere” Anton murmured, but she paid him no attention, instead trying to focus on how they were going to get up and over the fence in such a short space of time.

“The garage” he muttered in her ear as guards began to encircle them, some barking into walky-talkies whilst others pulled out truncheons. Something metallic was pressed into her hands from behind. Feeling its grooves, she recognised it easily as a key.

“What?”  
  


“In the garage” he said slowly, “there is a car.”

“It won’t help. I can’t drive.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, I –“ he cut off abruptly and his voice returned to its normal high volume. “What do you mean, you can’t drive?”

“Am I speaking code? _I can’t drive, Anton_.”

Julio had always managed deliveries, no matter the context of whether his heart was beating or not. Victoria had been too busy in life to pay any attention to learning; it wasn’t like she really ever left Santa Cecilia, anyway. Death hadn’t provided any further reason either, as the busiest areas of the city was strictly pedestrians and trams only.

“Then you’ll have to learn quickly. I’m going to hold off these hired gorillas in a highly spectacular fashion whilst you ready our escape.”

“All I know is that the steering wheel controls the direction, and _that_ was just off-handedly mentioned in a magazine once.” The bodyguards were stock-still now, waiting for the go-ahead from the silver-haired man, who was standing there and watching them argue with a shrewd look in his eyes.

“You’re halfway there, then. Ignore everything else and just focus on the wheel and the two pedals. Press one pedal – you stop. Press the other and you go. Simple, really.”

“Oh, God.”

“Don’t worry. On certain occasions, my most careless plans work out for the best.”

“Is this one of those occasions?”

He turned to survey the situation. “Not really, no.”

The silver-haired man stepped forward and they both tensed, expecting the worst.

“Hey there” he growled rather casually, “The name’s Javier. Care to explain what you’ve been doing on private property?”

Anton, of course, was the first to speak.

“Oh, seeing the sights, hitting your colleagues with chairs, that sort of thing. I don’t suppose you could let us leave and pretend this never happened, could you?”

Javier just smiled a toothy grin that wasn’t remotely friendly.

“Worth a try, I suppose” Anton conceded, clearing his empty throat and waiting for what would happen next.

“Tell you what. I noticed you’ve been snooping around the boss’ office. He doesn’t take too kindly to thievery, so hand over whatever you stole and maybe we’ll let you off with a light beating rather than getting the police involved.”  
  


Victoria put a hand to her chest, wincing.

_There’s panic again. My old friend._

“Can’t do that, I’m afraid. Against my philosophy.”

Javier reached down and steadily drew a vicious-looking meat knife from his boot.

“Give it back” he said calmly, his entire posture rigid and ready to attack. “Or I’ll throw this so hard, your girlfriend here will be skewered to the fencing.”

“I’m not his girlfriend” Victoria blurted.

“She’s my criminal-scaring utility” Anton agreed. “But regardless, I’m not giving you the chance to do that. If you don’t let us go, I’m afraid I’m going to have to hurt you.”

Javier snorted. The ring of bodyguards echoed with sycophantic chuckles. 

“Sure, tough guy. And how d’you plan on doing that?”

Anton straightened his bow tie and checked his cuffs before speaking.

“Well, you see –“

And then without warning, without any recognisable signs of what he was about to do, he took a large step forward and punched Javier across the face. Every spectator moved as one, Victoria scanning the gaps between the bodyguards for exits as they gasped and converged as one.

Javier recovered with a snarl as Anton attempted to descend on him, straightening himself with a well-aimed to kick to the detective’s face as he threw himself back upwards.

Victoria mustered her upper body strength as two of the bodyguards made for her, shoving one roughly out of the way as he came forward for a grab. The second managed to snag her dress as she ran for the garage; she responded by throwing a fist out behind her and successfully managed to make it land against some part of his face.

The garage was thankfully close, though she could hear the footfalls of two more behind her; having decided to have gone for her rather than Anton. The door was still open, broken fragments of chair strewn in front of it. She leaned down and grabbed a piece as she reached the car – a cream-coloured item with blacked-out windows and a finish that had been shined within an inch of its life – swinging it around with her body at the nearest target.

Guard number one grunted as the makeshift club hit him in the side of the face, flailing around in response and accidentally hitting number two in the process. Using the distraction, she slotted the key into the door and allowed herself a quick sigh of relief as it unlocked perfectly and swung open on the first try.

Her attempt to slam the door shut behind her as she climbed into the driver’s seat was hindered as the frame was blocked by guard number two’s wrist, who had since shoved his way to the front. Adrenaline clashed violently with her urge to stop as she slammed it repeatedly on the bone, hoping the guard would see sense and detach it over his pained cries. He eventually did, allowing her to turn the lock back on and slide the key into the ignition.

_Wham._ Something hit the left-hand side of her face, digging tight into her skull and eye socket. It took tremendous effort to pull it off, the bodyguards outside now banging on the windscreen, the echoes so dull and throbbing that it felt as if they were inside her own head. Digging her fingers under the object, she finally managed to prize it off amidst the cacophony – the hand had regained sentience, now making a grab for her again as she held it a distance.

Half-focused on the hand and half-focused on her escape, she put slotted the keys in the ignition with her right hand as she wrestled the enemy appendage with her left. The engine came to life, humming appreciatively amongst all the rest of the noise.

Her left eye was covered as it moved around to the front of her head. Blindly hitting pedals with her foot, the world lurched back and forth as the car struggled to do anything correctly. A sudden roaring as she was pressed back into the seat told her she’d finally hit the right one, the hand slackening its grip slightly, as the force caused it to lose control.

One of the guards had rolled off the side of the bonnet as the vehicle came shooting out of the garage, but the other was too slow. A number of successive banging noises across the roof and the sound of a muffled yell made it clear he’d been thrown along the exterior and performed quite a spectacular flip off of the end.

The rest of the guards scattered as she approached, foot pressed into another pedal with more force than necessary and hoping that it was the correct one. Anton and Javier only briefly paused in response to the oncoming two tonnes of metal, giving Anton enough time to poke Javier in the eye and break out of the headlock he was in as Javier cried out in pain.

“Move, quickly” he grunted as he opened the door beside her. She tried her best to shuffle along, really, she did, but when she was wearing a full-length dress it was a tad difficult not to get caught on something. There was an awkward ripping sound as the hem caught on a thin black stick poking out from underneath the dashboard. Anton paid it no heed, moving the stick in a certain direction and letting the car fly forwards. Victoria was knocked back again, this time falling almost upside-down into her seat, her air bun loose and glasses askew. She sincerely hoped her glare was still efficiently communicative when she was nearly on her head.

“Hold on” Anton said simply, grin illuminated by the reflection of the car’s headlights. Victoria straightened her glasses and began to utter a “what?” before they rammed the fence and she was sent backwards for a _third_ time.

It was official. Once they were out of here, he was getting a boot lick for every one of this car’s sudden movements. She was never getting in a vehicle like this again, that was for sure.

A single unfortunate bodyguard tried to cling onto the back of the car as they revved out onto the street and was forced to let go as Anton deliberately swerved into the curb and his side was scraped along the rough tarmac. Victoria forced herself not to watch it in the mirror, but Anton happily hummed along as he examined the spectacle.

“Fifteen seconds” he commented, once the man finally relinquished his grip and rolled to a stop behind them, slowly growing smaller and smaller until he became a dot on the road behind. “That was a whole twelve seconds longer than I expected him to last.”

Victoria didn’t answer, instead checking to make sure none of her bones were missing and that the rip in her dress wasn’t too obvious. It was right up the front, the part which would normally have been covered up by her work apron.

_Which I left by the fence when we broke in,_ she realised. _I won’t be able to go back and get it now._

“I understand that I forgot to use our code phrase just then” Anton said happily, as if the whole evening had gone off without a single hitch. “But please remember that this is a learning practice.”

“What happened with Javier?” she asked, deciding there were bigger topics to address.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“He had you in a headlock. Weren’t you able to beat him?”

“I like to think I beat him in a moral sense, as in he’s a hired thug for a hack songwriter and I’m not. But in a literal sense, no, I didn’t. I was, as they say, steamrollered.”

Silence. It was surprisingly uncomfortable, given that she’d always loved them.

“I left my work apron.”

Anton raised a finger. It struck her that he now looked oddly bare with just a dress shirt, suspenders and bow tie. “Hold that thought for a moment please, Victoria.”

He took both hands off the steering wheel; the vehicle swerved dangerously as she leaned across and tried to establish control on her own. There was a rustling sound from the backseat as Anton’s head re-emerged, the struggling hand of the bodyguard wriggling in his grasp before he rolled down the window and tossed it out like a plastic wrapper.

“Continue.”

“I took off my work apron when we jumped the fence. It had the logo and name of the family business on it.” She felt embarrassed, like a young child who’d wrote all over the walls and only just now realised their mistake.

Anton flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, not taking his eyes off the road.

“You’re a wonderful burglar” he sighed sarcastically.

Victoria immediately felt her defensive barriers reinforce themselves.

“Apologies if I haven’t had a lot of practice breaking into people’s homes, Anton. What was your plan again, exactly? Hop into a garden, break into a garage, use a chair to smash down a door, then just _hope_ no-one heard it and you’ll simply waltz in?”

Whatever direction they were driving in, the night air was becoming thick with a hazy smog. The car began to lurch more as the road stopped being flat and was replaced by rough, loose cobblestones that bounced around beneath the wheels.

“Well, it worked to a point, didn’t it?”

Angry at many things, but mostly herself, Victoria fixed her gaze on the windscreen, her glare so intense she was fairly certain she could burn a hole through it.

The odd building passed by, but all of them were heavily vandalised or had weeds and ivy growing from every available window. One didn’t have a roof, but instead the burnt remains of a frame that was still smoking at the edges.

“In any case, there’s good news and bad news.”

She decided to stay silent, her jaw twitching.

“The good news is that I found a substantial piece of evidence in De la Cruz’s study for when we accuse him of plagiarism.”

He slid the notebook out of his inner pocket ever so slightly, just so she could see, before moving it back out of sight.

“The bad news is, your apron combined with security footage means he has evidence of our crimes. What with being a widely-adored man of such high influence, the entire police force will be looking for us and we are now officially wanted criminals.”

It was what she was expecting to hear. It didn’t make her any less angry though.

“And my family?” she growled.

“Oh, here we go with the family again. What about them?”

“If that _músico_ probably knows who I am by now, all my family will be aware of what I’ve been a part of once the posters are up.”  
  


“And all of that will be forgotten about once we hand in this notebook and De la Cruz is exposed as a fraud. The news will be too busy chasing his limousine down every street to keep paying us any attention.”

The word _street_ echoed in Victoria’s mind. Speaking of, where were they? She didn’t recognise any of the worn-down structures. None gave an air of natural decay like in Shantytown, but looked more like they’d been violently torn down and shredded apart by rabid animals. 

“Los Odiados” Anton said nonchalantly, obviously catching onto her unspoken question.

Just when she thought her day couldn’t get any worse.

She was in the worst depths of the Land of the Dead, where all the shunned evil resided. Murderers, rapists, war criminals…their place of residence in the afterlife was the one thing they all had in common.

“We’re in Los Odiados” she stammered. This was new. Rarely did she stammer, worried or not.

“Yes, we’ve established that” Anton replied. She didn’t even notice her lack of an attempt to snap back at him.

“This is…this is bad.”

“It’s not the best, I’ll admit. Living conditions leave a lot to be desired, but the police will never come down here looking for us. They’re not very well-liked around these parts, as you’ve probably guessed, so they just leave this hole alone to slowly rot.”

“I’m really not comfortable with how calm you are about this.”

“I’ve been down here a couple times before, waiting for some overzealous client to get off my back. It’s all a matter of finding information and keeping to yourself, really. Just let them think you’re down here for a reason: no serial mugger approaches you if he thinks you’ve committed genocide.”

“And…have you?”

“That’s a tale for another day.” His head slowly pivoted to face her. Worst still, she honestly couldn’t tell how much of a joke that was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Anton's plan didn't work out. For Victoria, this is a nightmare. For Anton, this is Monday. 
> 
> Please tell me if you think Victoria is becoming too OOC and any suggestions to make her more like she was in her (limited) appearances in the film.
> 
> Once again, ALL COMMENTS AND CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM WELCOME!


	7. Laurita

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's admittedly a lot shorter than my past few chapters. This is mainly because I'm aiming to refine the details for the rest of the story and I don't want to have to go back and change anything if the jumbled mess of notes I have at the minute (most likely) turns out wrong. Regardless, I hope you enjoy.

**4 days until Dia de los Muertos**

Imelda trusted her granddaughter like no-one else. Maybe since they were so alike.

Both were stern, no-nonsense and fiercely protective of what they believed or who they loved. And as a result, she did not raise a fuss when Victoria claimed she was going for a walk that night, implicitly believing that she needed the fresh air and knowing she wouldn’t do anything…unsavoury.

More of a fuss was raised, however, when morning came and the family realised she’d never returned home.

Julio, panicking up a storm, had rang the police almost immediately before Imelda could stop him. This was a family matter; it wasn’t necessary to have pompous officers roaming their home asking them pointless questions. The simple task of telephoning Victoria would solve the matter easily, most likely she was staying at a hotel or had drifted off on bench somewhere in the middle of reading. It wasn’t like there was any imminent danger involved.

If there _had_ been any imminent danger involved, the police would have been worse than useless. _Twenty minutes,_ they said it would take to send officers around. _Twenty minutes?_ If this was the Living World, her granddaughter could have been stabbed and left for dead six times over by then!

That unrelated thought suddenly dragged some uninviting memories back into her head. Victoria had mentioned that she was studying that serial killer, the Invisible Man, the other night at dinner. Was there a link there?

No, she told herself. They’d kept the whole thing hushed up, no-one besides the family ever found out about how its youngest adult member died and that was how it was going to stay. Julio had once or twice wanted to tell his daughter what had really happened on that fateful day after her arrival in the afterlife, but Imelda would always cut it short with a stern look or a sharp clearing of the throat. They’d all agreed it was best never to tell her. There was already too much misery in the family about that foul _músico_ , adding murder to the mix would bury them in a quicksand that would be impossible to escape from.

But ever since that dinner, the guilt had begun to mount up.

They’d kept the shop open, of course. Imelda was more than prepared to give Victoria some extra time if she wanted to isolate herself for whatever reason – maybe it wasn’t even linked and she was just being silly – fully assuming that the straight-faced young woman she knew and loved would be back by lunchtime at the latest.

The ring of the bell snapped her from her thoughts. Mentally scolding herself and hoping that the worry didn’t show on her face, she turned to the counter to fix the new customer with a _don’t-try-anything_ gaze, since she knew it was one she could confidently give.

Her eyes fell upon a small woman, about Rosita’s height, but thin as a pencil and looking rather worse for wear. If it wasn’t for the shoulder joint protruding from the top of her ragged, worn-out white dress, Imelda easily could have mistaken her for a corpse due to the way her bones gave off a weirdly grey and yellow tinge, like all her happiness had been removed around the same time her heart stopped. Had she been alive, the neck of the dress would have shown off quite a large amount of cleavage, whilst the bottom was frayed and adorned with what could only be soot and burn marks. 

“Good morning” Imelda announced curtly, not letting herself judge by appearance. “Welcome to Rivera zapateria. How can I help you?”

One of the woman’s eyes was hidden behind a thick curtain of hair, the other was trained on the floor as she mumbled slightly.

“I’m sorry?” Imelda asked, perhaps sounding a little sharper than intended. _If you come into a store, at least have the decency to talk to the owner directly._

“I’d like to have my feet measured so I can order some new shoes, please.”

“Of course” she responded, glad that they were finally getting somewhere. “If you would kindly sit on the stool by the wall whilst I fetch the tape measure.”

The woman just nodded, shuffling across the room as if the act made her extremely self-conscious. Imelda could glimpse more sickly-looking bones through the odd tear in the back of the dress, her memory throwing up old stories of how skeletons looked before they died their second death.

Or maybe this woman wasn’t being forgotten at all. Maybe she was just destitute and had decided to get some footwear as a way of treating herself after months of saving money. Whatever the reason, Imelda held the Rivera declaration of quality proudly in her head as she strode into the workshop, ignoring the way Julio hopefully looked upwards as she pushed the door open, clearly wishing it was his daughter.

“The tape measure, please.”

The twins, long since accustomed to their sister’s abruptness and knowing that she didn’t mean anything by it, looked under their workbench at the exact same time before Felipe rose with the tool outstretched in his hand.

Imelda took it with a polite nod, returning to the storefront and finding the young woman sat rigid in the stool, muttering to herself.

Oh, boy. This was shaping up to be a fun morning. Getting in close to the woman to measure her feet – her legs were wrapped in black stockings, each of a different shade, the left one so torn down the centre the knee bone poked out – she could smell a pungent whiff of alcohol.

“Are you Imelda?” the woman spoke up all of a sudden.

Imelda was used to small talk. So long as it didn’t get too personal, she was happy to indulge.

“I am” she responded simply, continuing with the measurements as she spoke.

“Same surname as that one in the paper” the customer added lamely, lolling forwards slightly in the stool.

And just like that, it had gotten too personal. Imelda’s thoughts were instantly plagued by a no-good blight on their family and his fame-seeking ways. Looked like he’d finally got his wish.

Not that she was bitter. She just hoped he was happy and that it was worth abandoning a four-year old daughter over.

“Oh, really?” was her stiff reply, deciding to give the woman the benefit of the doubt for now. After all, Rivera wasn’t exactly an uncommon name.

“Yeah, see –“ she paused for a second and burped in a rather disgusting manner. Imelda may not have had a nose anymore, but the stale odour was pungent enough. “- she had her face all over the front page, something about that music guy. The _burro_ with the stupid chin, de la Cruz, was it? He isn’t very happy with her, from what I could tell.”

Until that point, Imelda had been perfectly prepared to put money on it being her ex-husband and to deny all relation to him. Then she’d clocked the pronoun.

“ _Her?_ ” she repeated, squinting as curiosity got the better of her.

“Sure. Got this out of the bin earlier, hold on.” The woman dug a hand into the top of her dress and pulled out a newspaper which squelched and dripped a little as she unfolded it. “There y’are. See?”

She passed it to Imelda, who took it between thumb and forefinger. She turned it around to look at the main headline and she nearly dropped the tape measure.

It was Victoria. An artist’s rendition, yes, but unmistakeably her.

A thousand questions flooded the tip of her tongue for a moment, the most prominent of which was a simple “ _what”_. The more she read, the more bewilderment that was raised. Thievery? From a _musician?_ Victoria, in all her boundless curiosity, had never expressed an interest in music at all, let alone a dangerous desire to steal from celebrities.

_Well, even if they are as someone as deserving as De la Cruz…_

The dry thought almost caused her to smile slightly before she forced herself to refocus. Other than an unauthorised visit to the Mariachi Plaza one time in her youth, Victoria had never once argued or rebelled against the golden family rule.

A chilling thought struck Imelda. Maybe someone had coerced her into it. It wouldn’t be the first time a charlatan with a sly attitude had dragged a family member away.

Then her eyes settled on the second image next to her granddaughter’s and she was overtaken by the urge to rip the newspaper in half.

She recognised him from a few days ago. The rat who’d sauntered into the shop, played a _tune_ on their bell and acted like he’d done nothing wrong when she headed out to put him in his place. Never mind the whack she’d given him for his ignorant, cavalier attitude, she should have delivered an extra three so it was clear that he was never to go near any of her relatives ever again.

The bastard’s smile shone just as brightly in the photo, as if silently taunting her. Imelda stood up quickly, eliciting a surprised murmur from the customer.

“I’ll be back shortly” she stated rather mechanically, already striding for the workshop. The only audible part of the woman’s response was a slurred “M’kay” that was already half-muffled as she passed back through the doorway to the surprised looks of her family.

She slammed the paper down on the table, feeling glad at the visceral impact, letting the rest of them gather around it as it dripped onto her work surface amidst a chorus of successive gasps.

Then everyone just started talking at once.

“- what do we do, this isn’t my mija, she must’ve been wrongly accused –“ Julio half-shrieked, head in his hands and going almost cross-eyed with panic.

“- well, maybe we can appeal to the police –“ cut in Rosita.

“- you’ve seen Imelda with the police, she’s -” Oscar said.

“- madder than a cut snake” Felipe finished for him.

“- and then if Coco gets here, she’ll blame me for all of this and it isn’t my fault, I just don’t know what’s gotten into the girl lately –“ Julio continued, oblivious to his sister trying to talk to him.

_“Quiet!”_ Imelda snapped and the rapid, ensuing silence was suddenly deafening. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to get Pepita to track her scent. We’ll use one of her books, any of those should be enough to establish a trail. We follow it, we notify police of the incident and if anyone has harmed her before we get there, be it that grinning lunatic or otherwise, we make them _pay_. _Claro?”_

Julio nodded vigorously. The twins glanced at each other and shrugged before nodding too. Rosita’s line of sight was diverted to the doorway just before she opened her mouth to speak.

“Oh, you know where he is?” came the lethargic voice of the customer. “The _grinning lunatic_ , I mean.”

Imelda turned to frown. “I’m afraid this is family business and doesn’t concern you. Please go back into the shop and I’ll be with you shortly.”

The woman stumbled as she instead made her way further into the workshop. “Yes, see, well, that’s the hitch, isn’t it? It’s family business for me, too. I need to find the fellow for personal reasons, so if you could just let me tag along – “

“You’re not coming” Imelda stated brusquely, deciding urgency outweighed the need for politeness. “You came here for shoes and you will get them. But you are not –“

“Don’t need shoes, not really” the customer cut across her. She fished a flask out of her dress and took a drag before carrying on. “I just saw those two on the front cover and decided to see if I could find the family of the girl. Learned you’ve got a fearsome reputation around here, huh?”

She pulled a face and looked upwards for a moment before shaking her head and giving a drunken giggle. “I’ve got a week tops before these bones here fade into dust. So yeah, I’d really appreciate it if you could help me out. I find Mister Doucet. You find your relative. Who doesn’t win in this situation?”

_Pepita, in the likely event that you’re violently sick on her,_ Imelda thought, but her mouth came out with other words.

“Fine. But it’s only out of pity that we’re allowing you to join us.” She noticed Julio give her a timid but reproachful glare, clearly not wanting to be dragged into her decisions.

The woman just shrugged. “Hey, any reason’s good enough for me. I’m Laurita, by the way. Now, who’s this _Pepita_ person?”

*

It was after an uncomfortable night’s sleep in the car (well, Victoria slept whilst Anton occasionally tapped his fingers or whistled for six hours until she reached across and hit him around the back of the head), that she made the mistake of asking if there was anywhere they could get some food.

No, she didn’t _need_ food, as Anton was naturally all too happy to point out. But she was used to a certain daily rhythm, which was the only semblance of normal life she could still cling to given her situation. Anton had eventually lamented, leading her through a few winding streets and strangely enough, not a word left his mouth other than a warning not to make eye contact with anyone they passed.

They’d ended up in what Victoria assumed was supposed to be a town square, except it sorely lacked the colourful bunting of the big city. There was a fountain, chipped away at the edges and filled with decomposing rubbish rather than water, but nothing else to indicate that the place belonged to a community of sorts.

“Relocation” Anton said simply as he caught her looking at the unfortunate water feature. The smog had gotten thicker the further they’d walked; she could barely see his face despite them only standing about six feet apart. “People either arrive in the Land of the Dead or get forgotten every day. Ergo, the population gets bigger, more is built on and eventually certain parts are left behind. By now, the left behind part consists of numerous cities, including this one.”

He turned on his heel to face a worn wooden sign, badly-nailed and incredibly askew above a set of saloon doors. Only one of the two lights above it was actually illuminating the words, though exclusively in sharp flashes as the bulb fizzed and sparked.

_“The Final Stand”_ Victoria read out loud. “A bar?”

“Or what passes for one” Anton responded, buttoning up his dress shirt and straightening his bow tie.

“Is it safe?”  
  


“Not even remotely” he responded cheerily. “We’re still in Los Odiados, remember. Just in a more sheltered part. Don’t worry though, these people won’t attack me. They may glare at me and call me some rather unsavoury names when they think I can’t hear, but they won’t attempt anything physical.”

“…and what about me?”  
  


He paused. “Well, the good news is that _I’m_ safe. However, you shouldn’t need to much worry, either.”

“And why’s that?” she said coldly, expecting him to suddenly make her wait outside.

“You are my partner.”

And without saying anything more, he swung the doors open and strolled in, Victoria slowly walking in behind. 

In all fairness, it was the only public place she and Anton had yet entered that hadn’t resulted in him receiving a death glare the moment he entered someone’s line of sight. She’d been expecting a rowdy fighting area with stools flying everywhere as a pianist loosely played in the background along to the carnage. Instead, whilst the place was relatively full and all tables had at least one person sitting at them, it was quiet and nobody suddenly made a move to run up and hit them over the head with a tanker.

Putting her hands together in front of her and looking at the faded, stained carpet as she walked, she noticed a slip of paper sticking to the bottom of her boot. Once they were at the counter and had sat down on stools that creaked and shifted under their weight, she peeled it off and recognised it as the phone number Ceci had given her. It must have fallen out of her apron pocket during all the chaos last night.

“Do you think there’s a telephone in here?” she asked Anton in a hushed voice.

“Not sure. How about we ask?” And before she could stop him, he cleared his throat so loudly she was surprised that when the bartender turned around, half the bar didn’t turn around with him. “I don’t suppose you happen to have a telephone, sir?”

The bartender threw down the dirty rag he was using to wipe out a glass as if he’d been interrupted in the middle of something extremely important. “Out back.”

“There you go. Out back” Anton repeated.

“Thank you” Victoria responded hesitantly, looking away from the bartender as quickly as she could when his expression failed to change. She didn’t know what he was living in this town for and she didn’t want to, either.

Luckily, the back door was only a few feet away from where they were sat and she found herself in a back alley, complete with loose bags of waste and some rabid raccoon alebrijes hissing at each other over a stale piece of bread. The phone was just to her right, covered in graffiti of curse words and phallic imagery.

Victoria lifted up the receiver, ignoring the spray-painted doodles – seriously, what was it with immature males wanting to vandalise everything with caricatures of their genitalia? – and naturally put the number for the zapateria into the keypad.

She stood there for a whole five minutes before she accepted that no-one was going to pick up.

_They’ll be out searching for me. That’s all. Otherwise they’d answer immediately, expecting it to be a customer._

The reality of the situation was getting heavier as she started entering Ceci’s instead. She was a wanted woman with nowhere to go and no-one to turn to except for an arrogant windbag until she could clear her name.

If anyone asked, she didn’t feel tears welling up in her eyes. Not at all. Ever since childhood, she’d believed that crying was for babies and hopeless idiots, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Thankfully, Ceci picked up.

_“Hello?”_

She could have almost sobbed with happiness, never mind that the voice belonged to a person she’d only known for about a day.

“Ceci, it’s me” she said finally, when she was certain that none of the relief would enter her voice.

_“Victoria!”_ was the seamstress’ shocked reply. Her next words were quieter; she must have noticed her volume and decided to avoid perking up any unwanted ears. _“Where on earth are you? De la Cruz has gone crazy, barging around the Arts District shouting questions and expecting everyone to answer them… Héctor came over this morning, he managed to hide in the linen closet so he wouldn’t be seen, but I wasn’t so lucky. Honestly, who does he think he is?”  
  
_

“An entitled músico who believes that because he can strum a few notes on a tacky instrument, he is owed the world” Victoria said dryly, quoting one of the many venom-filled rants her grandmother had gone on whenever she believed that the room was empty.

_“What?”_ the question was sharp, taking Victoria aback for a second, but then it relented. She got the feeling that Ceci was not one for taking someone’s vague, metaphorical rambling. _“Oh no, I’m not talking about Ernesto. I’m talking about Anton. If he wants to go out and make himself public enemy number one over a celebrity singer, then I can’t be bothered to stop him anymore. I’m not his mother, for God’s sake. But what is he trying to do by dragging you into it?”_

Victoria couldn’t exactly shrug over the phone, so she stayed quiet.

_“Have you contacted anyone else?”_

“I tried to ring my family, but they didn’t pick up. Do you think they’ll have found out by now?”

_“A portrait of you and that idiot all over every front page? Yes, I think they’ll know.”_

Victoria’s grip tightened around the receiver and she was overcome by the searing urge to punch something. Or, more precisely, someone.

“Great. Just _great!_ And to think all I wanted was a nice Día de los Muertos –“

_“What does Anton have to say about this?”  
  
_

_“_ Absolutely nothing. Or at least nothing worth listening to. All he’s really done up until now is ramble on about how this tacky red notebook he found in the study of the _músico_ will clear us of all wrongdoing.”

Ceci didn’t respond for a few seconds.

_“Then you might just get your peaceful holiday, then.”_

In all honesty, Victoria certainly hadn’t been expecting to hear _that_.

“I – I’m sorry?”

There was a second pause before Ceci spoke again, her voice measured and thoughtful.

_“Anton’s a lot of things, Victoria. He’s got the shortest attention span, little to no common sense and is a prolific_ cabrón _, but I will say this for him: he always tells the truth when it matters. If he thinks that what he’s got will clear your names, then chances are it will. I’m not saying it’s guaranteed. But when he makes a statement like that, he honestly believes it.”_

Victoria let herself take solace in this message. It made sense. After all, it had already been proven that Anton wasn’t one for empty words or moral upliftment.

“…I see” she murmured, unsure of what else to say. “Thank you.”

_“Just stick with him, okay? He may be smart with detective work, but_ ay _, it’s like dealing with a headless goose when it comes to anything else. He needs someone to give him a good smack once and again to remind him how to be a decent human being. That, and…well, I still worry about him when he’s out on his own.”_

Victoria couldn’t help it. “Mother Hen” she smirked.

Ceci’s comeback was grouchy, but her own smile was evident in her words.

_“Don’t forget, Victoria, I work with fabric. I have a lovely collection of extra-sharp sewing needles you may like to be acquainted with the next time we meet.”_   
  


Her smile faded somewhat as the noise of a slight scuffle could be heard from Ceci’s end. The woman unleashed a few choice curses that would have made Julio pass out before Héctor’s voice came down the line.

_“Er, hi”_ he began. Victoria could see the sheepish grin on his face without even setting eyes on it.

“Hello” she responded courteously.

_“Erm…about those keys Anton took last night…erm…”_

Her heart sunk as she knew full well what he was going to ask next.

_“…I don’t suppose you’ll be able to get back to me before Día de los Muertos, will you?”_

Victoria scoured her mind for the best ways to let him down lightly.

“If we can prove our innocence or have the charges against us dropped before then, then yes. But I must say, that’s not a promise.”

_“No, no, that’s –“_ he paused slightly and she could recognise the tone of a man trying to disguise the fact that he was losing the very last dredges of his hope. _“- that would be unlikely, I suppose. Still, nice try, I guess. Um…has your investigation been going well, then?”_

Victoria just stood there, completely bemused. Was he being serious?

_“Oh, yes, sorry, silly question. You’re being chased by police, aren’t you? Yeah, that’s not…that’s never a good thing, I suppose. Unless you were only in it for the chase, I…are you?”_

“Amazingly enough, no.” Victoria said waspishly.

_“No, of course not…”_ Héctor’s voice drifted off towards the end and Victoria felt a tad uncomfortable to be dwelling in his misery with him.

“Listen, I think I ought to go” she decided to say, inching the receiver away from her ear ever so slightly. “A back alley in Los Odiados isn’t likely the safest place to make a phone call, so I’d rather not stand here for too long.”

_“No, uh…no, it isn’t. Alright, I guess I’ll see you later, senora. Maybe I’ll ask Ceci if she’s got any spare Frida costumes in the - **wait, where are you?”**_

“…Los Odiados” she repeated, the stupidity of what she’d tried to use as an excuse only now hitting her.

_“I – oh, that’s bad, senora. Very bad.”_

“I’m well aware how bad it is, thank you” she said, trying very hard not to snap at him. She appreciated his worry and he seemed like a nice enough man, but she’d never liked being lectured over the obvious.

_“I know, I know, you’re smart, I get that. Sharp tongues are something I’m quite used to”_ the words were followed by a little, wistful sigh, as if he was thinking fondly of someone with a similar penchant for quick responses. _“I just…I know you probably don’t care, but stay safe, okay? Watch out for each other.”_

Something about his voice made her forgo her usual blunt comments and instead nod, despite no-one being there to see it. “Yes. I will.”

_“Okay. Hasta luego…Victoria, wasn’t it?”_

“Yes. Hasta luego, Héctor.”

The line went dead for a good ten seconds before she hung up, sighing and rubbing her eye sockets behind her spectacles. She brushed the loose hairs she hadn’t had time to fix out of her face, before turning on her heel and re-entering the bar.

All the whilst ignoring the fact that she felt she was being watched from twenty different angles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite part of writing "dad" Héctor is the fact that you can slide in little hints that readers will no doubt get but Victoria will be left oblivious. I apologise for Laurita's addition if OCs aren't your thing, but I promise that she has a role in the story. 
> 
> I'm also aiming to do some more drawings done in the future, namely because I can't help thinking of this chaotic duo whenever I consider sitting down with a pen. 
> 
> As always, PLEASE COMMENT! I welcome all constructive feedback and thoughts!


	8. Gods and Goons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel I must apologise for the massive gap between posting chapters. I genuinely wanted to publish weeks earlier, but my new life at university has taken a real toll. As I type this, it's just passed midnight, so clearly I've yet to master the art of going to sleep at a decent time. 
> 
> Regardless, I've spent quite a while deciding what parts of the story should go in which chapters, so I hope this one provides.

**4 days until Día de los Muertos**

Javier had worked under Ernesto ever since he first made international headlines. Naturally, the job was never dull; there was always an over-eager crowd or nosy journalist to chase away, the methods of which got increasingly unconventional and (in his opinion) fun over time. After all, evidence of his less-than-legal ways was rare in the twenties and thirties, as no-one was either confident nor stupid enough to accuse him of blackmail or threats against their families. Especially when his employer always hired the most expensive lawyers and had no problem with the once-defendant then carrying out said threats once he was ruled as innocent.

Ah, the good old days.

Things took an unfortunate nosedive after Ernesto was crushed by a bell in the early forties: his part-time hobby had to be put on the backburner once the lawyers finalised the death certificates and moved on to work for the next on-the-rise millionaires. Which suited him just fine. He broke into the houses of half of them and, with the help of a truncheon and a detailed description of just what he’d do to them and their wives if they got the police involved, he became a million pesos richer.

Why slave away writing songs or signing record deals when a six-digit value could be achieved in the space of a week and with complete anonymity?

Javier had spent the last few years of his life getting his first few grey years whilst lying on a beach in Barbados. By that point, he was pushing fifty and becoming rather old. Or at least too old for the physical requirements of his - for a lack of a better term - work. A lot of the time he spent reading the news and pondering scenarios in his head. Namely what an encounter with this new kid on the block, the so-called Invisible Man, would go like. He’d read about the deaths across Mexico and couldn’t help but feel a tad underwhelmed. Murder, murder, murder. Machete killing after machete killing after machete killing. True, the numbers were admirable, but where was the variety? Didn’t the guy get bored? Or did he just trudge around aimlessly day-to-day, looking for the next sod to dice like a steak?

It was a topic that came into his mind often and it always ended with the same thought: thank goodness he wasn’t a psychopath like _that_ guy. 

His sudden long and drawn-out bout of cardiac arrest one day was the first time he’d ever considered the existence of a god, or at least some form of karma. But if such a god did exist, he was doing a pretty bad job of things when it came to the whole “judgement of the soul” stage. Once his heart stopped beating and his lungs were no longer processing oxygen, he was practically reliving the glory days once again, looking menacing in public and _being_ menacing when his private time allowed.

Until a few nights ago. A routine nightly stroll into the back garden of Rivera shoemakers had resulted in an admittedly embarrassing end thanks to some prick in a red suit. Then, no more than four nights later, that same guy had broken into _his_ residence, not trying to be even the smallest bit subtle about it in the process.

What had really thrown Javier for a loop had been the woman with him. It had taken him a while to remember where he’d seen her before, but by morning, he realised. It was that Imelda Rivera, the very same one he’d originally been sent to threaten.

So, kitten had claws, did she? Well, he could play rough.

But first, he had to give Ernesto the report. He knew of the break-in and naturally wanted a thorough check of the property to see what had been taken and which rooms had been damaged.

The man was in his bedroom, sat across a chaise-lounge, with a masseur rubbing his shoulder blades through his silk, cream-coloured dressing gown. Javier had never understood the practice. If someone ever tried touching him from behind, he’d smash their face cartilage into bite-sized pieces with the help of a rock.

Those stupid rat-dog things yapped by his feet and he narrowly resisted the urge to kick one as he passed.

“It seems not much was taken” he announced, hands behind his back and not bothering to make Ernesto aware of his presence.

“ _Oh, that’s good…_ and?” Ernesto mumbled, motioning the masseur to move upwards a tad as he listened.

“The biggest financial damages will be the replacement of one of our back doors, as well as quite a few chairs, for some reason.”

“ _Bit faster…_ right.”

“We’ve completed an inventory and as far as we can tell, all that’s been taken was a little red book from your office.”

At these words, Ernesto’s eyes snapped open and he was suddenly rigid, as if the massage had had no effect on him at all.

“Oh?” he asked, trying to sound casual, but it was clear to anyone in the room that his mood had worsened instantly. “Do you we know who it was?”

“Doucet” Javier responded, not one for mincing his words. “And that Imelda Rivera woman.”

Javier had seen his boss annoyed before. Being put on the spot by a reporter, or nagged by incessant tour managers, it all provoked the same reaction and was solved with the same bouts of physical violence. Ernesto would smile yes, but it would vanish the moment they were out of sight and he’d make it clear that it was Javier’s job to make sure they never crossed paths again. Then all would be dandy and it would be like nothing ever happened.

But never had he seen him visibly enraged. Until today, anyway.

Ernesto spun around and shoved the masseur’s hands away.

“Get out” he snarled at her. The woman managed to start mouthing a “what?” before he repeated himself, now a lot louder. _“Out!”_

The woman quickly scampered from the room, but Javier decided it would be best not to let the smirk show on his face.

Ernesto got to his feet, grabbed one of the feather pillows lying on the four-poster bed opposite and hurled it across the room.

_“Why?”_ he snapped, hair messy as he dug his fingers into it. “It’s been ninety years since Héctor was gotten rid of! She never once bothered come after me! Now all of a sudden out of the blue, that… _bitch_ decides to steal my songbook?”

A bodyguard poked his head through the door to check if everything was alright, but swiftly had said head knocked off his shoulders as another pillow was thrown straight into him.

“It’s _mine!”_ he seethed, stamping his foot with enough force for the floor to vibrate. “Héctor’s gone, it’s _my_ song book! She’s never had any proof and now she does! She took it! She - my – _damn it!”_

He rounded on Javier with a manic look in his eyes. If the bodyguard didn’t regularly beat and mutilate people for a living, he might have taken a step back.

“This is _my_ stuff! _All_ of this is _my_ stuff! I earned all this! I’m Ernesto de la Cruz, _the greatest musician of all time!”_

“We sent a drawing out to the paper” Javier said evenly, handing him the sketch he’d had behind his back. Ernesto snatched it away, looking at the cover with complete bemusement.

_“That isn’t Imelda!”_ he spat, so angry that his voice broke. For once, Javier was taken by surprise. “Who the hell _is_ that?”

“She was at the zapateria when you told me to go over a few nights ago. She fit the profile. Stern-looking. Strong voice. Obscenely arrogant if I had to guess.”

“Must be some _family relation_ ” Ernesto replied, spitting out the two words with pure venom. “It was all the woman ever cared about. Some second child or grandchild or something.”

Javier was tempted to ask why Ernesto would sooner assume it was a second child rather than a first, but decided not to rile the man further. After all, he had enough evidence to send him away for the rest of his afterlife and he tended to make rather erratic decisions when emotional.

“Boss?” came a tentative voice from behind. The nameless drone had since reattached his head and was edging towards them with a newspaper. “We’ve got a name. Victoria Rivera.”

Ernesto took the thing like it would vanish if he wasn’t fast enough.

“ _Get lost_ ” he hissed at the man, who was far from slow in obeying.

He was panting like a bull as he fell silent and read the article. Javier didn’t speak, knowing it was one of those times when silence was golden.

“They’re working together” he said eventually, turning back to his second-in-command. “That moron of a detective is in it just to aggravate me and she…do you think Imelda found out?”

Javier shook his head. He was the only one Ernesto had ever shared his biggest secret with and while he’d never given all the details, he was fairly certain this was all just a coincidence.

“No. That Victoria woman’s just got roped into it somehow. They’re liabilities, but not massive ones. All that matters is that we get the songbook.”

Ernesto nodded at first, but then shook his head. “No. Wait. No, no, we get to the bottom of this. It’s too big, _I’m_ too big to fail now. We find them, we get the songbook, then we find out what they know. We need to have a little _chat_ with them.”

“As in a chat-chat, or a break-every-bone-with-a-crowbar-until-they-scream-the-answers-just-to-make-it-stop-chat?”

Ernesto smoothed back his hair in a vain effort to tame it, motioning towards the door.

“Get your crowbar. Go fetch.”

Javier took his leave, cracking his knuckles and trying to maintain an air of professionalism by not grinning too broadly. The day was looking up.

*

It was clear Anton had let Ingrid out of his ribcage to exercise for a while whilst Victoria was using the phone, as upon return, the oversized cockroach was standing in the centre of his other alebrijes, occasionally turning on the spot or twitching slightly as it observed and watched over them.

“She seems to be thriving” she remarked, starting a conversation just to ignore the void in her chest.

“Not much as Stefano and Ofelia there. See them, away from everyone else, by the coaster? They’re most likely ready to start mating.”

“Oh?” she said sardonically, wondering whether it was a safe idea to buy a drink. It would have to do for her breakfast; the only food she could see from her stool was either mouldy or surrounded by dust. “And what names do you have in mind for the children?”

“I’m not sure at the moment. I know that my ideas aren’t often planned ahead –“

_No, really? What a surprise._

“- but arrive in the moment. Just like I know that you would not be bringing up this topic of conversation if you didn’t want to divert your thoughts.”

_…damn you, Anton. Damn you and your admittedly impressive deductions._

She unfurled her hands – she hadn’t been aware up until that point that her fingers had been intertwined – before sighing and turning to face him with a steely gaze.

“You’re worried.”

She snorted surreptitiously. “Was it obvious?”

Anton didn’t respond immediately. “Nothing bad will happen, Victoria. If it’s the police you’re worried about, don’t be. Our names will be cleared by the time Día de los Muertos rolls around. If it’s about your family, don’t be worried about them, either. Your grandmother, from what I could tell in our brief encounter, is a fiercely protective woman. Protective from the wrong things, yes, but protective nonetheless. We’ll be fine. I promise.”

Her conversation over the phone with Héctor had calmed her nerves somewhat. Anton’s reassurance had gone as far as to quell the last of the stress. She sat there, suddenly feeling like a whole new person.

“Thank you” she said. And it was possibly the sincerest she’d ever been with him.

Anton turned back to the roaches, who were continuing to scurry around, oblivious. “How about Henrietta if one of them is a girl?”

Victoria gave a light smile and turned to the barman, adjusting her glasses and making it clear she wanted to talk to him.

“Could I have a coke, please?”

The barman stared at her with somewhat empty eyes, for a time so drawn-out that Victoria wondered whether he’d just fallen asleep standing up. But, as if a light switch had been flicked on in his brain, he eventually blinked and broke out of his reverie before grunting and leaning under the counter.

She decided it would be best to take that as a yes.

Taking the time to take a quick inconspicuous glance around the room, she noticed three other patrons, all in varying states of dishevelment and dirtiness. A man in a black dinner jacket with food waste and stains splattered across the front, another man with a scraggly beard smoking an ugly-looking pipe and a woman in a scandalously low-cut dress sat cross-legged.

The woman winked at her and smirked, but just as the heat began to course through Victoria’s non-existent skin, their smile suddenly faded and was replaced by that same blank-eyed stare.

Victoria spun back around in her stool, jumping as a coke bottle was slammed down in front of her. The barman went back to rubbing the counter with his dishcloth, not even bothering to wait for a thank-you. She wanted to glare at him, but noticed he was too absorbed in the scabby wood surface to even register her looking in his direction.

And that empty gaze was back again, too.

Was this just a habit down here? Ignore the crime and filth in the area, to the point that self-survival becomes so important you automatically tune out anybody else?

She risked a second glance back, taking her time with the man in the dinner jacket. He was shoving spoonful after spoonful of paella into his mouth like a machine, making her lip curl in disgust. Up and down his arm went, up and down as –

_Wait._

The food wasn’t touching his mouth. It was raised towards it, like he was preparing to eat, but then lowered again, back into the bowl. Back and forth, as if comically stuck between decision and indecision. Starting and rewinding time wouldn’t have given his movements such perfect precision.

That’s when she noticed the others, too.

The man with the pipe blew the exact same size clouds of smoke, making the same three puffing noises as he did so. And the woman would cross and uncross her legs exactly every three seconds.

This time, when she spun back around towards the bar, she didn’t dare look back again. Instead, she leaned over and whispered into Anton’s ear.

“There is something extremely wrong with everybody else in this room.”  
  


Anton finished cooing as the last cockroach disappeared up his sleeve and Ingrid’s final leg vanished into his ribcage.

“Define _wrong_ ” he said in a curious manner, rebuttoning his shirt and waistcoat.

“It’s like…” even as she swallowed and leaned closer to explain, she knew how ridiculous her next words would sound. “…it’s like they’re robots. Like they’re not human. Look at them, they’re doing the exact same thing over and over again.”  
  


Anton’s head turned ever so slightly to face the subjects; the movement so miniscule it was almost negligible.

“Oh” he announced, the caverns above his nose now back on her. “That _is_ rather odd.”

“You’ve got no idea what’s happening?”

“Not a clue. Isn’t this exciting?”

She peered at him over her lenses. “Yes, Anton. It’s _exciting_. We’re in an unknown and possibly dangerous situation. Excitement is just the emotion I’m feeling here. I could practically jump for joy.”

“You seem to have reached a new level of sarcasm. Impressive.”

Victoria leaned further forward, catching sight of the bartender out of the corner of her eye. He hadn’t moved for the last three minutes, his rag making the same circular motion around the same spot on the counter.

“What’s the plan?”

“Do you always assume I have plans for every outcome?”

“You’re always acting like you’re smarter than everybody else, so yes.”

“Ouch. But I see your point. We need a strategy.”

“And do you have a strategy?”

“Yes. It was to engage in this conversation to make them think we haven’t realised.”

“And then?”

“…and then I’d come up with a new one.”

“Fantastic. In your own time, then.” She folded her arms. “Has it occurred to you that we may be able to just casually walk out and drive away?”

“I suppose we could, but I’m afraid _that_ particular idea is marred by the simple fact that our vehicle is out of commission.”

“Out of commission?”

“…on fire.”

_“Why is it on fire?”_ Victoria hissed through her teeth.

“When you were outside on the phone, I decided it would be best to destroy the evidence. Also, I want to see the look on De la Cruz’s face when he finds out we burnt his ride.”

Victoria massaged her temples, elbows on her knees as she hunched over. “Fine. How about we just walk out of here, then go from there?”

“Are you not going to finish your coke?”

“Amazingly enough, I’ve lost my appetite. Let’s go.”  
  


Anton nodded and rose from his stool with her, upon which all three of the other patrons did so too. The room fell still. If so much as a feather fell, chances were you could hear it. Both of them glanced at each other, this time taking a single step forward. The patrons did the same, the men abandoning their paella and pipe respectively. All wielding that emotionless look.

“Apologies for the theatrics.”

Victoria’s head snapped downwards as her gaze happened upon another man who’d seemingly been conjured from the ether. Clad in a black trench coat and wide-brimmed hat with a feather sticking from the rim, face adorned with an obsessively-groomed moustache shaped much like her father’s.

“I just wanted to make sure you were who I thought you were before showing up, all omnipotent-looking.”

His outfit was impressive in regards to its cleanliness (though maybe she’d just spent too much time around Anton and his filthy excuse for clothing) but it far from gave an impression of omnipotence. The disbelief was apparently evident in her face, as the man then clapped his hands together and the patrons turned on their heel and left, walking out of the door in single file. The bartender followed, even shutting the door in an overly careful manner so it didn’t bang.

The place was now completely empty except for the three of them. Victoria never thought she’d want to run back to the choking smog outside more than she did in that moment.

“Who are you?” she decided it best to ask, raising an eyebrow.

“Of course, where are my manners?”

Victoria couldn’t help but feel slightly irritated by this transparent power play. Judging by his tone, he knew full well he hadn’t introduced himself and had been waiting for one of them to inquire. As if he deserved the luxury of only answering.

“My name is Xibalba. You may have read about me.”

The gears in Victoria’s head ground to a screeching halt; already counting the number of frankly ridiculous things she’d heard in the past four days.

“Oh, _great_ ” was Anton’s only reply.

*

Anton Doucet, it seemed, was not a very popular man. This was little surprise to Imelda, but she thought there’d be at least _some_ breed of deluded idiot out there who would admire his pig-headedness and blatant disrespect.

Laurita had taken point from the moment Pepita had touched down by the Department of Family Reunions, the cat huffing at being awoken in the middle of its afternoon nap as well as having to bear the load of an unknown and therefore potentially-dangerous person. She’d immediately began pointing all of them to a specific person, one at a time, for a quick interrogation.

Well, _interrogation_ was a strong word. Whilst initially annoyed at this stranger commanding her and her family around, Imelda had to grudgingly admit: the young woman had a good sense of who to ask. Nobody ignored them, nobody clammed up and nobody asked for anything in return.

But did all of them have to be hiding in corners and down alleys, or huddled together in gangs?

Imelda’s hand had been within boot-range at every conversation, ready to unleash her wrath if any of them looked like they were so much as _thinking_ about doing something sketchy. After all, hell had no fury like a grandmother scorned. And when said grandmother’s granddaughter had gone missing, even the devil himself had better watch out.

“Down here” Laurita declared, taking them under the bridge and further away from the hustle and bustle of the main market place. Imelda finally decided it was time to speak up.

“Why are you constantly leading us to the more…shadowy areas of town?” she asked, never one to beat around the bush.

Laurita shrugged, tripping slightly on a cobblestone.

“When the last few years of your life go the way mine did, you sort of…build connections. And those connections stay with you in death. I mean, people who tend to deal drugs or whatever don’t have much of an extended lifespan.”

“How reassuring” Imelda snarked after a brief pause, her subconscious apparently deciding that she also needed to be the sarcastic one in Victoria’s absence. Rosita put a hand on her shoulder and despite the vague urge to push it off, she let it rest there as the stench of cheap cigarettes hit their nasal cavities.

“Don’t worry about these guys” Laurita added, stumbling again. At one point, she’d wasted half an hour of their time dragging them to a stall just to buy a bottle of gin and lead them all the way back. It was a sign of just how desperate things were that Imelda didn’t decide to leave her there and then. “Gael and his boys are nice. No, wait.”  
  


She stopped suddenly, a bizarre look of concentration on her face. Oscar bumped into the back of Felipe and their heads rolled back off of their necks.

“No, that’s the other ones. No, Gael is pretty bad, actually. Don’t say anything, just leave him to me.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea, _cachorra?”_ spoke up Rosita. Why on earth was she using pet names? This Laurita woman was a young adult, regardless of how she acted like an irresponsible teen. Thank God that Coco’s stupidity only stretched as far as sneaking off to dance with Julio. Looking at the sight before her now, Imelda was beginning to realise in retrospect that things could have been a lot worse.

“I’ll be fine, we’ve talked before. We don’t like each other, but, y’know…I mean, I _am_ drunk, but…”

And before any of the Riveras could object, she coughed loudly and caught the attention of three men. One stood up from the crate he was sitting on, the other two rose more gradually. The man who Imelda assumed was their leader was large and rotund, wearing a ragged duster coat, a white vest and a gold chain around his neck. His two goons looked more or less the same.

“Well, if it ain’t the town bike” he sneered, looking her up and down nonetheless. Rosita gasped and put a hand to where her heart once was, whilst the twins both shared equal looks of outrage. Imelda pursed her lips and crossed her arms impassively, determined to be the bigger one in this situation.

Laurita, to her credit, just rolled her one visible eye. “Very good, Gael. Did you come up with that one yourself?”

She didn’t bother with any more words, just shoving the newspaper under his nose. Gael’s sneer faltered before he shrugged and smoothed his slicked-back hair. “Yeah. Heard he got into trouble again. What about it?”

“Where is he?”

Gael scoffed.

“How the hell should I know? You’re the one who gets around, surely you’d have the best idea as to where the action is. You trying to fill a quota or something?”

“No, just out to settle a little bit of personal business” Laurita responded evenly, no outward signs that his words were having any effect on her.

“Well, I just hope we’re well shot of him. And who are you supposed to be?” he brusquely asked, finally seeming to notice Imelda and the family.

“My name is Imelda Rivera” Imelda said, remaining stoic. Her reasons for being there were best left unsaid. 

Gael just raised an eyebrow. “That supposed to mean something to me?”

This man was seriously risking a size seven to the jaw.

“No. But you asked, regardless. Now, answer her question.”

His lip curled. “You got pimps now, Laurita? And here I thought you were a big girl who didn’t need any protection.”

Laurita slowly lowered the paper, taking a deep breath as she did so. “You’re a smuggler, Gael. You know the streets around here better than anyone. Help us out a bit. And maybe then I won’t tell the police that I saw you and your cronies down here.”

The cigarette was ground to ash between his fingers. “You threatening me, _bomboncita_?”

His voice was so sickly sweet that if Imelda still possessed skin, it would have been crawling.

“No, of course not. Just giving you a fair warning, between friends.”

Gael took a step forwards, towering above her in terms of size, but all it took a was a muted growl from Pepita for him to stop in his tracks and his two henchmen to jump slightly.

“I see” he shrugged, smiling in a disgustingly casual way. “You’ve got the muscle behind you, now. Well here’s the thing, Laurita baby. I don’t know. None of us do. He broke into the _músico_ ’s mansion, got himself a nice arrest warrant for it and no-one in the network has seen him since. Heard he had a partner with him, y’know. Nice-looking woman. Wouldn’t mind trading you out for her some time, if you get what I’m sayin’.”

It took every ounce of Imelda’s self-restraint to hold herself back. How dare this horrid excuse for a human being act so lecherously towards her granddaughter? A quick glance out the corner of her eye confirmed that Julio, the shy and mellow Julio, also looked ready to do what would normally be Pepita’s job. Like any responsible parent, he was fierce when it mattered.

The man slyly rambled on, oblivious to the venom-tipped daggers being glared his way. “But ‘cos I like you, I’ll give you this: if anyone I know finds out about him, you’ll be the first I tell. Trust me.”

“That’s the thing, Gael. I kind of _can’t_ trust you.”

“Fair enough, I guess. But you can trust my business sense.”

_“Business sense?”_ Imelda growled. She didn’t have time for this anymore. Victoria was what mattered. Not him.

“Yeah, ‘course!” Gael grinned, pulling out another cigarette. Imelda sincerely hoped he’d choke on it and die a second death. “People in my, let’s say, line of work –“

“ _Criminals_ ” she bluntly spat across him.

“Yeah, pretty much” he said simply, not seeming the least bit offended. “We’ve got a bit of a special skill, see. After a while in the game, you can gauge threats and make deals depending on how well we profit from ‘em. It’s not always about the money. Sometimes it’s just to get rid of a dangerous element.”

He slowly lit his fresh cigarette up before speaking again, just to test her patience to the brink. But then, despite his stance not changing, he looked her in the eye with the closest thing she’d seen to sincerity. Despite the pressing urge to teach him some much-needed manners, she knew he was telling the truth as he nodded in the direction of the front-page image.

“We may be scared of you and your big cat. We may be scared of the police. But we’re _terrified_ of him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me ages to decide where to cut off the "Xibalba" reveal, but I settled on it eventually. Is he actually Xibalba? Who knows? Besides me? And anyone who knows that controlling an entire room of people isn't your typical mortal behaviour?
> 
> Hope you all liked Laurita, by the way. She doesn't speak much, but I hope I was still able to get as much of her personality across as possible. 
> 
> Also, yes, Gael is a scumbag. And I love writing scumbags, mainly because it's so fun eventually giving them their just desserts. Looking at you too, Javier. 
> 
> COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK, PLEASE! MY SLEEP-DEPRIVED BRAIN BEGS OF YOU


	9. The Alebrije Pit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't help but put something vaguely supernatural in my stories. Ergo, Xibalba is a no-brainer. I just hope it doesn't get too far-fetched, I still want to keep things fairly mired in the world established in the film.
> 
> And hey, I may finally have come up with a complete structure for Anton's backstory!

_A_ gas leak _, they said. A_ pack of lies _, he called it._

_The funeral was cheap and he was the only one in attendance. He barely gave the unborn child a single thought, a fact he only realised later. Was that bad? Probably, but it wasn’t like it had suffered or anything. Dying once was bad enough, there was no need to try and salvage it from her corpse only for it to shuffle off the mortal coil from birthing complications._

_They cremated her the exact same day. She was a prostitute after all, the woman chauvinistic men slept with when their wives ceased to amuse. No need to waste resources burying her._

_He scattered the ashes over the river. It wasn’t exactly the sea, but he could hardly afford a trip to the coast. She’d always hoped to take a holiday abroad at some point and he’d always promised to try and take her to meet his family in France._

_Looking back, it had just been one of many empty promises he’d failed to keep._

_Yes, money was continuing to be a problem._

_Every so often a few of his possessions went missing at home. The landlady called it insurance. Once he either paid up or left, he’d get them back. He didn’t really believe her, but neither was he in much of a position to care. It was all a bit rotten, really; she could take whatever she wanted even if it wasn’t hers, whereas he’d lost a wife and been fired the next day by Javier just for looking at a book too long._

_And of course, he didn’t have any evidence that it was murder, either._

_“We cannot convict without proof” the police chief had said plainly, with the air of a man whose time was being severely wasted. He didn’t go back._

_Then, a week later, they finally locked him out of his own home. In a way, he was surprised it took them that long._

_He asked for the items back. It wasn’t much, just a few chairs and his wife’s meagre box of jewellery and knick-knacks._

_The landlady laughed before slamming the door in his face._

**3 days until Día de los Muertos**

Xibalba, as he called himself, motioned for them to sit back down at the table. Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck twelve, the bells echoing around them and causing the weak walls of the bar to shake. Victoria looked to Anton first, but was surprised to see that he complied. It seemed best to follow.

Xibalba noticed her staring and cocked an eyebrow, inserting a hand into his coat pocket and pulling out three glasses and a bottle of expensive-looking wine that were seemingly much too large to fit.

“Bigger on the inside” he said casually, as one would explain that the sky was blue – well, outside of Los Odiados, anyway. “Heard that phrase on a TV show once. You might not have gotten the reference, but I’ve heard that a few countries over, they love it. So, have you worked out who I am yet?”

Victoria was so focused on working out how his little magic trick functioned that she didn’t notice she was being addressed, until seeing Anton looking at her out the corner of her eye.

“Supposedly, you are la Xibalba, one of the ancient Aztec death gods. You and la Catrina are the two figures that rule over the entirety of the afterlife. You are also a myth. So, if I could have your real name, that would no doubt save us a lot of time.”

She half-expected the appreciative chuckle from Anton, but not from the man.

“You don’t believe me.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No, I do not.”

“And how would you explain my seemingly impossible pocket size, then?”

“A cheap trick. A vaudeville act. It might fool children or particularly gullible adults, but I daresay there’s a perfect explanation behind it. I just need to find out what.”

The man poured the wine, but no-one made to drink any.

“You’re very narrow-minded, Miss Victoria. Just like Anton was before I met him.”

That response raised a couple of questions. She decided to tackle them in chronological order.

“How do you know my name?”

He leaned back in his chair, shrugging with an expression that clearly indicated he was enjoying this little game of his.

“I’m a god.”

“No, you’re not. You easily could have been to the zapateria, or stolen one of my documents –“

“Or, I could be a god.”

_“You are not –“_ she semi-snapped, but made to calm down. Question one was getting nowhere. Time for question two. “You’ve met Anton before?”

“Oh, yes. He’s one of my best customers, aren’t you, Anton?”

Anton’s face remained as passively happy as ever, but he only reached for his glass and didn’t say anything.

“He was much like you, see” the man continued. “When I ran into him, I proved that there were many things that existed beyond his comprehension and that I was simply one of them. Then, he and I came to a very nice little agreement, didn’t we Anton? A simple deal.”

Victoria stole a quick glance at the detective, but it was clear that he wasn’t going to elaborate. Time to quiz the “god” then.

“Explain this deal.”

Another eyebrow quirk. “Listening now, are we? Well, you’re direct. I like it. So, I will tell you.”

The man took a single sip of his wine. “Let’s be honest, Victoria. Between you and me, Anton isn’t the nicest man, is he? Yes, he’s all smiles and jokes, but he has the capacity to be quite a nasty fellow too.”

“I feel I must warn you that amateur psychoanalytics don’t impress me, Xibalba.” Anton’s interruption sounded strained.

“Kindly refrain from interrupting our conversation.” The man’s response was simple, but firmer than it had any right to be. Victoria wasn’t sure what to be more unsettled about: Anton - a person just as cynical as her - naming him as if he were the real deal, or the fact that he proceeded to physically distance himself from the table without a fight.

“Apologies” he said, turning back to her. If it wasn’t for that slight outburst, she would have mistaken his pleasant airs as genuine. “Anyway, imagine Anton being a lot worse than he is now. Imagine him dying, then realising that hell does exist and it’s this place. Not burning pits of flame, but an oppressive dump where you spend the rest of eternity spiralling into a deep depression, surrounded by nothing but sadness and misery. No way to end it. No way out.”

His eyes developed a slight spark as he talked. A sudden urge to back away seized at Victoria’s chest. He took a slight breath before continuing.

“Now imagine that I approach him with a little offer. He avoids said sadness and misery, provided he doesn’t do the things he used to do for a certain amount of time. A few centuries, give or take.”

“ _Give or take_?”

Xibalba just shrugged and took another sip. “It’s a little bet I’ve got going on with my sister, La Catrina. She thinks all humans are redeemable. I disagree. And so Anton’s little more than my test subject, really. My guinea pig. But to make sure he didn’t try and ignore me, imagine that I take a little something else from him.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out what looked like a gaseous golden cloud. The substance it was made of was too fine to be campuschil petals, but it achieved a similar effect.

“His memory.”

Victoria was now well and truly lost. What she was witnessing here and now went against everything she believed to be reality and fantasy.

Xibalba smiled coldly, turning to face Anton. The detective’s face was rigid, his grinning teeth looking so tightly clenched that the jaw seemed ready to snap.

“This is the last five years of the man’s life. I gave him the basics after we made our deal, just enough to make sure he stayed plenty obedient.”

He unsubtly eyed Anton before continuing.

“I’m sure he’s been trying to remember them himself. He’s probably being trying the whole time he’s been down here. But he can’t. Try as he might, he just cannot recall the events.”

“Why are you here?” Victoria asked, making it sound more like a statement than a question. “Why appear now, out of seemingly nowhere?”

Xibalba shrugged. “I’ve been paying special interest on the little escapades you two have been up to and I have to say, you’re both frankly _adorable_ together. I’d hate to see you both wallow around now when you’ve still got work to be doing.”

Victoria didn’t trust his words one bit. She could tell he knew this, too.

“Then we’d best be on our way” she said sourly, though deep down she wasn’t sure what his reaction would be as she made to stand. He only chuckled as she rose from the shoddy chair, her glass completely untouched.

“The alebrije pit. You’ll find someone who ought to help you there. An undercover police officer, should be willing to listen.”

“Alebrije pit?” she repeated. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.

Anton adjusted his bow tie and braces as he stood up next to her, his voice unusually terse. “It’s not too far, I’ll explain on the way over.”

He lightly bumped her as he started walking towards the doors, as if guiding a misbehaving puppy. She was half-tempted to slap him, but the train of thought was interrupted by one last remark from Xibalba, who, in a single fluid motion with his hand, has caused the glasses and bottle to vanish into thin air.

“I wouldn’t grow too attached to Anton, dearie. He’s got a few secrets you might not like to find out about.”

The ominous squeaking of leather sounded from below. Sure enough, Anton’s hands were tightened into fists and the eyeholes seemed to almost radiate heat. But despite everything, despite the fact that she was testing a god who could smite her down without a second thought, she still felt the urge to stand up for him.

“Everyone has secrets, _dearie_. And I don’t cave to thinly-veiled threats like that. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to get back to _being adorable_ together. Come on, Anton.”

She grabbed him by the sleeve and dragged him after her, refusing to look back despite the gnawing worry that she might have gone too far. But the only response was a low chuckle and when she dared look back through the swinging doors, the table was completely empty.

*

Music. Lots of it.

Well, _music_ was a loose term. Perhaps _blaring noise_ would be more apt.

Victoria had never heard a song like it in her life. Although maybe ten minutes’ worth of musical experience maximum wasn’t much to go on.

It was raucous, laden with bass and the walls seemed to shake with every thud of the drums. It was the exact antithesis of her own idea of a night out.

She hated it.

The alebrije pit had looked like every other building from the outside – a large brick structure with boarded-up windows and faded posters pasted to every available inch of wall - bar the overheard lights showing signs of life, so to speak. It also had its own pair of bodyguards outside, but they seemed less interested in assessing security risks than unsubtly staring at every female that walked through the doors.

She certainly hadn’t appreciated it, but if there was one thing she appreciated even less, it was when they entered and it wasn’t just the noise that was going to be an issue.

The entire place was bathed in purple light except for the ring in the middle, where two feral alebrijes – a cat and a chimp – were circling at each other, snarling. The spectator stands on each side were about three-quarters full, skeletons of all shapes and sizes sitting in groups and waving money around, no doubt terrifying the poor creatures and making them more likely to lash out.

“Let’s hurry up and get this over with” she hissed above the ruckus, not wanting to see what came next.

Anton nodded. “We just need to find the undercover officer. Any idea what they might look like?”  
  


Victoria frowned, too used to his usual brand of ridiculousness by this point.

“I think the point of being undercover is that nobody can tell.”

“You’d think so” he replied, shuffling along the row furthest back, edging for a set of double doors on the opposite side of the ring. “But police officers can be indescribably thick, sometimes.”

He stopped halfway across the bleacher, examining the entire room. The clientele was all dressed very differently, though each fashion style seemed limited to its own clique. Men with bullet hole-ridden sombreros and bandoliers around their shoulders shouted and handed notes to each other just a few feet from a group of men in modern hoodies with shifty eyes.

No matter what the date of death, it seemed like there were always people who enjoyed watching illegal animal fights.

Victoria’s gaze halted on a woman of medium-build, who was stood leaning against the edge of the stand to their left, dressed in a ragged military uniform and matching officer’s cap. Her eyes were shifty too, but they looked more nervous, more like someone scared than of being found out than someone looking for a target. Victoria could see an unmistakeable sadness in them when an airhorn went off, causing the animals finally started clawing at each other. Not to mention that she was one of the only people there without a group around them.

“I think I’ve found her.” She was having to shout now; the start of the battle had brought a renewed air of excitement to the crowd.

Anton looked in the direction she was pointing.

“Yes, I think you have” he agreed, strolling back down towards the target.

The woman’s eyes grew slightly wider as they approached and she began to rotate her body ever-so-subtly, as if to turn and walk away in a manner that could seem casual. Anton stopped her in her tracks with a well-placed hand on her shoulder.

“Excuse me, señorita, a quick word?”

She clearly knew she wasn’t going anywhere, so the woman nodded meekly and allowed herself to be led through the double doors into an empty storage area, laden with cleaning equipment and empty cages. Victoria decided it best not to think about what might have happened to the inhabitants. At least the din was slightly muffled as the doors swung shut behind them.

The woman was unceremoniously pushed onto a wooden crate by Anton, tugging at her sleeve as she waited for one of them to speak.

“Look” she started, nervous, “I don’t know what you want, but violence amongst patrons isn’t allowed in this establishment.”

“And there was me hoping for a legendary smackdown in this glorified cleaning cupboard” Anton smiled, the rows of teeth making her lean back slightly. “No, we’re here for something a little more edifying than that. Do you know who we are?”

She studied the two of them for a few seconds before her face showed recognition.

“You’re Anton Doucet and Victoria Rivera. You’re both wanted fugitives.”  
  


“Correct. And you are an undercover police operative. Congratulations! It’s your lucky day.”

“…you’re turning yourselves in?”

“Interesting suggestion, but I’d sooner lick a cheese grater. No, Officer, you are going to be the one to prove that in our case, the ends justify the means.”

“You committed breaking-and-entering. Very rarely is this justified.” Her voice sounded slightly more authorative, but Anton just responded with a disapproving tut.

“Careful, your disguise is slipping. Not that it was very convincing to begin with.”

His hand drifted towards his inner pocket, but then he stopped and his brow furrowed.

“Just breaking-and-entering?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Is it only breaking-and-entering we’re being subjected to this tedium for? He didn’t report anything stolen?”

The officer frowned and slowly shook her head. “No, nothing…nothing stolen. Hold on, is this a confession?”

Anton looked at Victoria and it was then that the thought dawned upon her.

“…he didn’t report the songbook missing.”

“He didn’t report the songbook missing” Anton repeated. “Interesting. The first drafts of his world-renowned works? His pride and joy? It would be worth thousands, if not millions. And here he is, either not noticing that it’s gone or not wanting the police to look for it. What’s that about?”

“Maybe he has other drafts? Or it’s a duplicate?” she suggested, throwing random thoughts into the air.

Anton opened the front cover and squinted at something written inside. “Yes…maybe…”

A sudden crashing noise from a few metres behind broke them from their reverie; something metal had been knocked to the ground. Anton shoved the book back into his pocket, Victoria instinctively reached for her shoe and the police officer whirled around on the spot.

There was a tense silence before the light switch was flicked on, to reveal…

…a wincing Héctor appearing from behind a row of shelves, shoulders hunched as if expecting a smack around the back of the head.

The relief in the air was almost palpable.

“Heard everything, Héctor?” Anton asked lightly, the casual tone still somehow implying that the answer had better be a _no_.

“Uh…some of it?” Héctor grinned nervously. “In my defence, I do want to say that I was here first, but… look, it doesn’t matter. Just go back to your conversation, I’ve got some work to be getting on with, anyway. Oh, hello, Officer López.”

"Hello, Héctor." 

Victoria found it interesting that she knew the man. What was the connection, she couldn't help but wonder. 

When nobody made a move, Héctor slowly turned around and walked back to his hiding spot again, accompanied by banging and clattering, which was much louder this time.

“As I was saying” Anton said, his attention back on the policewoman as if there’d be no interruption, “we rather need your help. And I prefer to work solo where possible, so you must understand that this is rather necessary.”

“Solo?” the policewoman repeated blankly. “I thought you and Miss Rivera were accomplices.”

“Oh no, she’s not my accomplice.”  
  


“I’m his criminal-scaring utility” Victoria said blankly, not really paying any attention. Her gaze was focused on Héctor’s outline. He was bent over slightly, his hands tinkering with something small.

“See? She gets it” Anton smiled, sounding almost proud.

The policewoman just looked incredibly bemused. Anton draped an arm over her shoulder and led her off of the crate to the corner of the room. “Let me explain to you in detail. I think this may prove mutually beneficial to us…”

It was apparent that Victoria wasn’t wanted for now. At least she could give the policewoman credit: if Anton had ever tried something like that when _they’d_ first met, he wouldn’t have had any teeth left to smile with.

She let her curiosity guide her to the opposite side of the room, where she could get a clearer view of Héctor. The item he was fixated on was one of the old cages, which he was trying to fix with duct tape and wire cutters. He stopped fiddling with a piece of tape stuck to his finger when he noticed her observing him.

“Hey” he said, giving another slight grin.

“Hello” she replied crisply, hoping she didn’t sound too sharp. “What are you doing here, may I ask?”

Héctor wilted, clearly knowing that the question would have come sooner or later.

“I do odd jobs around town. Everyone in this place needs a handyman or two to keep things running, so I get good money out of it. Well, decent. Well, some, I mean…I get _some_ money.”

Victoria watched him fiddle with the cage a bit longer; clearly, he was getting nowhere with it.

“No-one in… _better_ establishments want to hire someone who’s nearly forgotten, you see. I guess people just don’t like to be reminded of what will happen to them sooner or later. That, and…if I was working at a restaurant, suddenly collapsing into a shower of golden petals might spoil the atmosphere a bit, _no_?”

He cracked a smile, this one a bit more genuine, but Victoria couldn’t find much reason to smile back. The Final Death sounded horrible. And people in Shantytown probably had to witness it day in and day out.

“I’m sorry” she said, allowing a moment of sensitivity for him. “Really.”

Héctor just shrugged.

“Eh, what can you do? All I want is to finally get across the bridge this year, you know? Just three days left now: I’ve got my piggy bank nice and full for my plan.”

“I’m sorry about the keys, too” she added. And she meant it.

His smile slowly became warmer and he beckoned her closer, but in a way that implied that she had plenty of choice. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. Really. If any of my past plans had worked, I’d probably be kicking back right now, playing cards with Tía Yolanda. Maybe talking with Chichárron, if he’s yet forgiven me for taking his femur.”

Blanking out the femur part, Victoria shuffled over and looked down at the sad little cage with him. “Sounds nice.”  
  


“It is” Héctor said, a little wistfully. “But, _ay_ , what I wouldn’t give to see my baby one last time.”

“How are you forgotten if you have a baby?” She didn’t mean to ask her question so bluntly; she was cringing by the first couple of words at her blatant lack of social skills. But Héctor didn’t seem to take any offence. She was simply offered another shrug at first.

“I don’t know. I died and my wife, she – she never put my photo up. We had a massive argument the last time we ever saw each other, but I never knew she’d take it this way. She’s dead now and she still refuses to talk to me.”

He put his head in his hands and rubbed his temples.

“She demanded I stay away. I was heartbroken, but I agreed. When you’re in love, you’d do anything for that person, even if you don’t necessarily agree with it” He was beginning to choke up slightly. Victoria hesitantly extended an arm and awkwardly patted him on the back. “If she doesn’t want to lay eyes on me again, I can accept it, but I _must_ see my daughter before I fade.”

They just stood together in silence for a moment. Héctor looked on the verge of a breakdown, Victoria continuing to pat him. She herself hated being treated with needless empathy, as if she were made of glass, but it was clear that he had gone a long time without anyone to voice his thoughts to. And finally, like a dam ready to burst, it had all come flooding out.

Examining him up close, it was only then that she realised how young he looked.

“I imagine your death came as quite a shock to you” she remarked.

“Food poisoning. I was walking with my friend to the train station so I can catch a ride back home… you know, finally see her again… and then there was a searing pain in my stomach. Next thing I knew, I woke up here.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I was murdered.”  
  


He’d shared everything with her, it was only fair he receive a little something in return.

_“Murdered?”_

“I don’t even remember it happening, so at least it must have been quick. But at least I had a few family members when I came over to the Land of the Dead.” She coughed awkwardly when she realised that what she’d said may not have been ideal. “…which probably wasn’t the best thing to say to you after you’ve admitted to being without yours, so please, uh… sorry.”  
  


Héctor chuckled, shaking his head nonchalantly, but before he could say anything else Anton interrupted with his trademark style, this time from across the room.

“Good news, team. Officer López has agreed to take the notebook off our hands and bring De la Cruz in for questioning.”

Officer López just folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. Honestly, Victoria could relate on a near-spiritual level. “On one condition, Doucet.”

“On one condition” he added, sounding a little less enthusiastic. “We free the alebrijes trapped here.”

Victoria frowned. “What? Why?”

López suddenly looked pained. “It’s why I was here in the first place, to get information on some of the illegal fighting rings in Los Odiados. I never would have volunteered had I known animals were involved…”

She trailed off slightly and shuddered. Anton’s hand quickly left her shoulder as if she’d stung him.

“It’s barbaric, how they’re treated. Some are captured when their owners are forgotten… others are just taken from the streets, then locked in these cramped little cages and trained to go ballistic at each other.”

Mama Imelda had always been sure to keep Victoria and the rest of the family in the safe haven that was Santa Cecilia. It seemed she’d always had an issue with big cities (maybe because they’d always been involved in angry tales about _that man_ ) but at least it had spared them from witnessing things as horrible as what was being described to her now.

Victoria wasn’t stupid. But there was a real difference in reading about things like this and actually being part of it, as she was quickly coming to learn.

“I agree” she said finally. “We should at the very least give them the chance to escape.”

“Your emotions really just run you, don’t they?” Anton sighed resignedly.

Victoria opened her mouth to snap at him, but Héctor beat her to the punch.

“Making decisions with your heart isn’t a bad thing, Anton” he said, with the air of a man who had repeated these exact words many times. Normally she’d be annoyed at the insinuation that she needed someone else to defend her, but in Anton’s case, it was best to just overwhelm him into submission. “It helps you know the difference between right and wrong.”

“As long as I don’t break more than three minor laws per day, I know I’m doing alright.”

“I’m coming with you” he responded simply. Then Victoria realised he was talking to _her._ “I’ve got maybe a few weeks left, tops. I’ll admit I was too scared to do anything like this myself, but…I’d rather not spend my final moments knowing I didn’t bother help you.”

“Can we please focus?” asked López. Victoria’s attention was immediately on her. The Officer had clearly been younger than her when she’d died, but there remained that steely glint in her eyes that couldn’t be stopped. “What’s the plan, then?”

“Haven’t a clue” Anton said nonchalantly. “What _is_ the plan, Assistant Detective?”

And suddenly, all eyes were on Victoria.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: the officer is the same one at the Marigold Bridge in the film, whom Héctor attempts to pass whilst dressed as Frida Kahlo. I got the name "Helena López" from a fic named "The Rivera Wrangler" by im_fairly_witty. I'm fairly certain I saw it in another story somewhere else too, so maybe that's now the universally-decided name. And I'm willing to bet that she does a bit more than just sit behind a scanner all day, hence her undercover op. 
> 
> And yes, Anton is trusting Victoria to lead things for a bit. Maybe now they'll finally get something done. 
> 
> Comments, as always, will be loved and appreciated! 'Til next time!

**Author's Note:**

> The "no archive warnings" may change depending on what route the story takes later on and if I decide to change anything, etc. I'm still not sure if I want to make the two of them a romantic pairing, but hey, it's a good tag to use in the meantime. 
> 
> I'm not too sure how active this fandom is nowadays, but kudos, comments and constructive criticism is always good motivation for me to continue (I'm just really shallow like that). Even if you don't believe your impressions would be especially helpful, I would still love to hear what you thought - it simply never fails to make me want to write more.
> 
> 'Til next time!


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